


Paper Cut Hearts

by ennui_ephemera



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Big Bang 2020, Alternate Universe - High School, Background Katelyn/Aaron, Background Nicky/Erik, Boys In Love, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's just Tilda dw, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse (mentioned), Past Drug Abuse (Mentioned), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Soft Boys, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26343904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennui_ephemera/pseuds/ennui_ephemera
Summary: The paper cranes were Betsy’s idea. She’d brought it up to him in one of their sessions and explained that it could be used to help center Andrew during his depressive episodes. At first, Andrew thought it was an incredibly stupid idea. But as usual, Betsy was right. Creating something from nothing but a scrap of paper did help.Whenever Andrew felt too destructive, too angry, too hollow, the small paper cranes were enough of a distraction for him to get a grasp over himself again.Andrew is a high school student struggling to juggle his depression, therapy, and discordant family life when he meets the mysterious new student at Palmetto High, Neil Josten, a former runaway that makes Andrew fall fast. As suggested by his therapist, Andrew makes origami cranes to cope with the mounting pressures of life.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Betsy Dobson & Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Andrew Minyard
Comments: 254
Kudos: 661
Collections: AFTG Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! I'm really excited to start posting my fic for the 2020 AFTG Big Bang!! Originally, I had started writing this fic for Andreil Week 2019 but when I never finished it in time to post, I decided to give it another go for the big bang this year! It took a long time and was really, really, hard at some points, but it's finally here and now I get to share it!! I am beyond excited :3
> 
> This fic is also very special to me because as someone who very heavily relates to Andrew, I sort of started writing some of my own thoughts and feelings into this fic. In essence, I accidentally poured my heart and soul into this. I really really hope y'all enjoy and have as much fun reading it as I (mostly) did writing it! Updates come every Monday and Friday.
> 
> Also big HUGE thanks to [ghostangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostangel) for not only being an amazing beta reader, but also the artist for this fic! Please check them out, I had a wonderful time working with them and they were so helpful and their art is amazing and I'm so excited to include it in this fic!!! Enjoy!
> 
> TW for this chapter include: depiction of depression and disordered eating and sleeping

When Andrew woke to the weight of the world on his shoulders, he wanted nothing more than to let the thick blankets of his bed swallow him up and lure him back to the unhappy land of unconsciousness. 

He debated it, keeping his eyes cracked open enough to see the light fighting its way through the curtains closed tight over the window to catch the shape of a folded piece of paper, half-finished and laying abandoned on his desk. He was starting to drift back to sleep when an impatient _rat-tat-tat_ on his door startled him awake again. 

“Get up.” His brother’s voice, muffled by the wood of the door, grated against Andrew’s already fraying nerves. He squeezed his eyes, dry and itchy from sleep, shut tight. “I’m not going to be late because of you.”

Andrew didn’t move. Both he and Aaron knew that Nicky would still drive him if Andrew didn’t go to school. The loud knocking was unnecessary but Aaron did it anyway, driving a wedge of dull, throbbing pain behind Andrew’s left eye. 

He’d skipped school yesterday. Instead of going to his classes, he stayed in bed and played pointless games on his phone, switching from one to another when he grew bored, until he was able to sleep again. Andrew didn’t see why he couldn’t do the same today.

In all honesty, Andrew didn’t particularly care for the world and all its people. He’d faced his fair share of cruelty the universe had thrown at him, and he wasn’t keen on dealing with any more of it. He could go to school, ignore his teachers and classmates, drag himself to each of his classes and put up with the usual bullshit everyone expected out of him. Or, he could stay in and block everything else out, bundled in blankets and a copious amount of pillows. 

The choice was easy. It was hardly a choice at all. 

Another hard knock on the door drove the wedge in Andrew’s eye further into his skull. “Andrew, I swear to god.”

Andrew sighed, letting all the air out of his body until he lay deflated like a balloon. If he left his room, he’d have to pull himself together into some semblance of a person like a pair of shoes that didn’t fit quite right. There would be no rest for him, no reprieve in finding a quiet corner where no one was looking, to let his human pieces flake away. He knew this; one more time getting caught skipping class and he’d be suspended. 

“Are you at least coming to practice?” 

Practice was out of the question. Andrew barely had the energy to breathe, let alone deal with a sport he hated. No. Not today. Andrew couldn’t be a person today. Everyone would have to figure out a way to go on without him. It shouldn’t be too hard to manage. 

Aaron must have given up because the knocking and bitching on the other side of the door had stopped. Andrew didn’t care, he was already gone, his mind drifting away as he let sleep engulf him. 

He stayed in this state of half-consciousness until his door opened. It barely made a noise, no more than a small creak nearly swallowed up in the whir of the heater, but Andrew was attuned to the quiet sounds of someone trying to be sneaky. He split open his eyes, his head pounding with a migraine, and curled his fingers around the small pocket knife under his pillow. The glowing green numbers on his alarm clock told him it was late afternoon. He glared at the door in the half-light of his room and focused on the weight of the blade in his hands. 

At the sight of dark curls and a hesitant smile, Andrew felt himself relax the tiniest bit. He uncurled his fingers around the knife and withdrew his hand from underneath his pillow. 

Seeing that he was awake, Nicky pushed the door open a little further and stepped in. Andrew tensed again. He hated when people came into his space without permission, even if it was someone as harmless as his cousin.

“Hey,” Nicky said softly, eyes crinkled in concern. “You haven’t eaten anything today.”

Andrew said nothing, deciding to stare his cousin down until he got the hint and left. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t. Nicky took Andrew’s silence in stride. 

“Aaron said you weren’t feeling well again. I finished my shift at Sweeties, but I have to be at Eden’s in a couple hours. I can call in if you need me to, though. It might be nice to spend the rest of the night in, anyway.” Nicky smiled in all his cheery veneer. 

Andrew stared at him without responding. Aaron making up excuses on Andrew’s behalf didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t need his brother’s help, and he didn’t need a reason not to go to school. What he needed was a cigarette and some peace and quiet.

The smile on Nicky’s face began to slip away when Andrew still didn’t respond, but he rallied quickly with an even bigger one. 

“You’re right,” he said, although Andrew hadn’t actually said anything. “We can’t really afford me missing any more shifts. That’s alright.” Nicky paused, fingers tapping the side of the doorframe, but didn’t wait long for Andrew to reply. “There’s some tomato soup in the kitchen, if you’d like. It’s still warm, too. I have to get ready for work, but if you need anything, call me, okay?”

He retreated, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. Andrew listened to his footsteps move down the hall, the quiet shuffle of socked feet on carpet. A few moments later, he found himself falling asleep once again.

__

If Andrew had to wake up to someone pounding on his door one more time, he was going to commit homicide. Again.

Aaron’s obnoxious knocking was irritating, but Andrew didn’t feel as mentally waterlogged as he had the past couple days. At least, he had enough energy to chuck one of his pillows at where he imagined Aaron’s head to be on the other side of the door. The pillow hit the wall and slid harmlessly to the ground in a heap, but it was enough to put a lull in the knocking. A couple seconds later, Andrew heard Aaron’s stomping footsteps down the stairs. Rolling his eyes, Andrew began the tiring process of getting out of bed. If only to put an end to his brother’s nagging. 

He sat up, swaying from the dizziness left over from too little food and too much sleep. His head felt heavy on his shoulders, and the rest of his body was dragged down by the weight of the air around him. Another headache was beginning to form in his temples, and Andrew regretted moving so quickly. 

He already felt drained of energy after a night of the usual nightmares, and the thought of a full day of forced socialization with people he didn’t care about and teachers demanding the whereabouts of the homework he didn’t do made Andrew feel infinitely more exhausted. But he got out of bed. If he accomplished nothing else today, at least he could say he got out of bed. 

Andrew eyed the paper still laid out on his desk. The sloppy folds, the ragged edges, all the unfinished pieces of it before it was abandoned. He swept the inadequate paper crane off of his desk and into the trash bin as he passed by. It spiraled, the wing he didn’t finish flapping uselessly as it fell. 

His hair was a greasy bird’s nest and his shirt was stuck to his back from a layer of sweat, courtesy of laying swaddled in three blankets for two days straight. Andrew tried detangling the mess with his fingers, to no avail. A shower was sorely needed, even if it meant being late. If Aaron complained about it, well, he could walk to school. 

The hot water felt good against Andrew’s sore muscles, stiff with inactivity. He cleaned up quickly, slathering soap into his hair and ignoring the old urge to scrub his skin until it turned pink and raw to the touch. He finished rinsing out the suds but instead of turning off the faucet and getting out, Andrew closed his eyes and let the water beat down on him until his body matched the numbness in his mind. 

He had time to throw on a clean hoodie and jeans and brush his teeth with the disgusting bubblegum toothpaste Nicky had mistakenly bought from the supermarket. He patted his hair dry the best he could and opted out of wasting the little time he had for scrounging around for the comb. Instead he ran his fingers through his hair until it was somewhat decent and pulled his hood over his head. 

Aaron was waiting for him downstairs with his blonde hair combed, backpack over his shoulders, and a look of irritation on his face. A plate of bacon and eggs sat half-finished in front of him and his homework was spread out on the table as he scrutinized it. Aaron looked up at Andrew’s approach and leveled him a glare over his notebooks. 

“Finally,” he grumbled, and went back to his work. Andrew didn’t know if he was irritated with Andrew for almost making them late or if Aaron was mad at him because he was always mad at him. Andrew couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

Nicky called a greeting from where he stood by the stove. An apron was tied around his waist, pink letters proclaiming: _Kiss the cook!_ He waved the spatula in his hand, and Andrew watched the grease from the bacon splatter all over the kitchen counter. Nicky cursed and wiped it up and Andrew used his distraction to grab some breakfast and go. 

The thought of food made Andrew feel nauseous, but he also hadn’t eaten anything yesterday and his stomach was cramping from the lack of it. He plucked a couple strips of bacon and a piece of toast from the plate by the stove and went outside to sit on the hood of his car, something only he was allowed to do. 

The chilly air pricked at Andrew’s skin and the wind made his damp hair feel like knives whipping across his forehead. Andrew pulled his hood tighter over his head with one hand and balanced his breakfast on his knee as he picked at it. The sky was dull and the trees were turning from yellow to a dull, sickly brown. Soon enough, the branches would be bare and the world would be bled of color until next spring. Andrew felt tired at the thought; his world was gray enough.

He was about finished with the bacon and toast when the door opened and Aaron and Nicky stepped outside. Aaron’s eyes fell on Andrew as Nicky chattered away beside him but he said nothing when they approached. He slid into the backseat of Andrew’s car without a word and rubbed his hands together to ward off the cold.

Wiping his fingers on his jeans, Andrew hopped off his car and planted himself in the passenger seat, taking satisfaction in the fact that Aaron never got to sit shotgun. Nicky started the car and the vents blew out a gust of cold air as music blared out of the speakers. Suppressing a grimace, Andrew turned his attention out the window and waited for the heater to kick in. 

Nicky tried to keep up a stream of small talk on the drive, but Aaron must have been in an even pissier mood than usual because he said nothing back. Andrew sat in silence, and neither twin looked in the other’s direction when they parted ways for their classes. 

Math class, at best, was boring enough to put Andrew to sleep and useless enough for him to not miss anything important when he zoned out. 

He was seated by the large windows that overlooked the school grounds. The classroom was on the second floor, and while the drop wasn’t that far, it was enough for Andrew to feel the familiar low swoop in his stomach when he looked down and imagined all the inches of empty air between himself and the ground below. 

He stared at the sky, watching a dark smudge of birds fly across the expanse of gray. He avoided looking at the ground, intent not to let his mind wander to the image of himself, falling through the air, arms flailing, legs twisting, nothing to catch him, nothing to save him, until he met his end with a catastrophic _splat_ on the hard cement below. Queasy, Andrew tore his eyes away from the window. 

In an attempt to drag his thoughts away from heights and falling and cement, Andrew dug around in his backpack until his hand found the single notebook he kept in there. He tried to tune back into whatever Mrs. Hallerd was teaching, something about logarithms, but the equations on the board were a foreign language that Andrew didn’t care enough to decipher. Instead, he flipped open his notebook and tore out a piece of paper. 

The sound was obnoxious enough to draw the attention of more than one of his classmates, but Andrew ignored them and the looks they sent him and folded the sheet diagonally to make a square. 

The paper cranes were Betsy’s idea. She’d brought it up to him in one of their sessions and explained that it could be used to help center Andrew during his depressive episodes. At first, Andrew thought it was an incredibly stupid idea. But as usual, Betsy was right. Creating something from nothing but a scrap of paper did help. 

Whenever Andrew felt too destructive, too angry, too hollow, the small paper cranes were enough of a distraction for him to get a grasp over himself again. They were proof that he could make things, not just break them. See, he could do more than ruin. He could be more than something that _destroys_.

Sometimes that was all he needed. 

Andrew creased the last fold, smoothing it over with the side of his thumb, and inspected his newest crane. He held it up. It was better than the one he discarded this morning, but one of the wings was lopsided. Andrew tugged on it. When that did nothing to straighten it out, Andrew pulled on it harder – and it ripped.

The tear stretched from the middle of the wing to the tip of it, the edges rough and jagged but softened by the torn fibers in the paper. Andrew resisted the urge to crumble the paper crane in his hands and throw it in the trash. He took a deep breath and prodded the fissure with his finger, separating the folded paper and sliding the tip of his finger inside. It was possible he could salvage the crane with a bit of tape. 

“Mr. Minyard.”

Startled by the proximity of his teacher’s voice, Andrew’s hand jerked and the straight-edged side of the paper sliced open the pad of his index finger.

“Fuck,” he breathed and stuck the tip of his finger in his mouth as soon as it started to sting. He looked up and found Mrs. Hallerd peering down at him over the horned rim of her glasses, making her appear angrier than she probably was. 

Andrew’s hand curled into a soft fist. He hadn’t noticed she’d stopped lecturing or that she had even left the front of the room to make the long trip to his desk at the back of the classroom. The thought of losing awareness of his surroundings, even for a few minutes, made his skin crawl. 

“Hand it over,” Hallerd said, extending her hand, palm up in expectation. Andrew stared at her with a blank expression. His fingers tightened around his paper crane of their own volition.

Hallerd gave up on waiting for him to give it to her and snatched the paper out of his hands. The bird fluttered helplessly in her grasp as she strode back to the front of the classroom and deposited it next to a coffee-stained mug on her desk. Andrew watched its broken wing flap pathetically in the air and tucked his injured finger into his fist.

__

The bell rang forty-three minutes later. Andrew stuffed his notebook in his bag with his half-hearted notes and left the homework Mrs. Hallerd handed out on the desk. He had English next, which he dreaded and thought about skipping, but turned down the right hall anyway.

He was almost to his classroom when someone stopped him with a tug on his shirt and a quiet “hey” that was nearly engulfed by the noise of other students in the hall. Andrew spun on his feet, shoulders squared and ready for a fight, but came face to face with a short boy with pretty blue eyes and a mess of scars on his face. 

_Neil Josten_ , Andrew’s mind supplied. They had calculus together. He came in half way through the school year last year, immediately standing out to Andrew in the flighty way his eyes shifted around the room, scanning corners and searching for exits, glancing quickly at faces but never lingering. He attracted attention just as much as he deflected it with the plain way he dressed and how he never said a word to anyone. Andrew didn’t even think he knew. 

Andrew eyed Neil warily and waited for him to talk or move on. 

At first, he didn’t say anything. His eyes glanced away and then back, searching for an escape despite causing the confrontation. Then he pulled Andrew’s poor paper crane out of the pocket of his patchy gray hoodie. 

The ripped wing hung at an awkward angle and Neil cradled it in his hands as if it were a living thing, flesh and blood instead of lined paper and stray pencil marks. His sleeves were pulled over his knuckles, and he took care to keep his fingers tucked out of sight. Andrew narrowed his eyes but Neil just shrugged. 

“Swiped it from the teacher’s desk. It seemed important to you,” he said.

Andrew stared at him hard before plucking the crane from Neil’s hands and stuffing it in his pocket. He turned away without a thanks and left Neil in the crowded hallway to be buffered by students who didn’t care to walk around. When Andrew looked back, Neil was already gone, having disappeared like smoke. 

_It seemed important to you._

Andrew shook his head. He didn’t know what to make of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> therapy, sweetie's, and a paper frog

Betsy Dobson cradled a cup of hot cocoa in her hands, a tendril of steam coming off of it and curling in the air of her office. She only ever put two marshmallows in her cocoa, but she always allowed Andrew to have as many as he wanted. He usually asked for four, the optimal amount for the best hot chocolate to marshmallow ratio, but today he plopped five marshmallows in his mug and set it aside on the coffee table before reaching for Betsy’s supply of paper. 

Betsy lowered the mug from her mouth and smiled.

“How are you today, Andrew?” she asked. She always asked. No matter how dark the circles under his eyes were, or how much his mind seemed to wander away from him, she always made the point to ask about his wellbeing. 

Andrew smoothed his fingers over the paper as he thought about it. The paper was a light green with blue pinstripes, the perfect pattern for the origami frog he wanted to make. 

He’d watched a tutorial earlier that day, wanting to do something with his hands but not feeling like making another crane. At home, he used errant pages from his notebook or forgotten homework assignments, but Betsy kept nice origami paper in different colors and patterns that he could use during their sessions. 

“I’m alright.” He shrugged with one shoulder and folded the corner down on the paper. Betsy sipped at her cocoa in silent encouragement to elaborate. Making the second fold, Andrew said, “Last week was shitty. I only went to school two times.”

Humming, Betsy took another sip from her mug and set it down across from Andrew’s. She rested her notepad on her knee and tapped on the paper twice with the back of her pen before jotting something down. 

“Did something happen to make it bad?” Betsy asked.

Andrew shrugged again and turned back to the green paper in his hands. He made another fold, frowned, and undid it. 

“Andrew?”

“I just didn’t feel like getting out of bed,” Andrew answered Betsy’s gentle prompt. “Everything was heavy and too much. But nothing really happened.”

He didn’t have to explain what he meant. He and Betsy had already hashed it all out during their previous sessions, and she knew that Andrew hated repeating himself. They’d talked about triggers, what might cause his depressive episodes and what might make them worse. 

As far as Andrew knew, nothing set him off last week. One day he felt almost human, and the next he was struggling to breathe in air that felt more like water, thick and heavy in his lungs. Sometimes it took absolutely nothing for Andrew to drown.

Betsy took that with a nod, shifting in her chair and adjusting the pad on her other knee. She tapped her pen two more times and analyzed Andrew over her thin wire-framed glasses with keen eyes. “Absolutely nothing happened?” she asked.

Andrew thought, but didn’t know what to say. Aaron was pissy at him, Nicky was doing his best but was obviously cracking under the pressure, he couldn’t focus on his homework long enough to get it done let alone turn it in on time, and he had shitty grades to show for it. None of this was new or particularly earth-shattering. 

Andrew thought of the paper crane and the long rip in its wing, the condemnation that it would never fly, and wondered if that was his life.

Except there wasn’t a rip in his family. It was more of a broken picture frame, shattered glass held together by glue, the edges sharp enough to cut. Nicky was the glue, doing his best to keep everything together since the very beginning, but Andrew and Aaron were the shards of glass who cut into each other with every biting word and terrible silence. 

Sometimes Andrew wondered if he was also the hammer. 

His fingers paused in making the next fold on the origami frog. He finished the front legs and creased the paper with his fingernail. Squinting a little, he could see it was starting to take shape, if a bit lopsided. Everything was coming out lopsided.

Andrew grimaced. There was one thing that happened last week, something that was new and interesting enough to bring up. 

“I met someone,” he ventured. He sneaked a look at Betsy and saw a small smile set in her round face. He has never mentioned a _someone _outside of his family before, and Betsy looked happy and encouraging. It reminded him too much of Cass and he had to look away. He turned back to his frog and said, “A boy in my class. We talked a few times.”__

__“That’s very good. Did talking to him improve your mood?”_ _

__Did Neil change anything? Andrew didn’t know. But his thoughts strayed to the quiet boy in his class during moments of silence, when his brain had nothing better to do than wander. Andrew supposed it was better than remembering darker subjects._ _

__After he had rescued Andrew’s paper crane, Andrew thought they would never interact again. Neil never associated with anyone. He always stuck to the outskirts of everyone else – keeping his head down and his elbows tucked tight to his sides with his backpack wedged between like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. Like if he was small enough, and quiet enough, he would be forgotten in the background._ _

__Despite his reluctance to be noticed, Andrew’s eyes often wandered over to where Neil sat. He found himself glancing at Neil from the corner of his eyes whenever Mrs. Hallerd was too busy lecturing to notice, and sometimes he caught Neil looking back._ _

__“I guess,” he finally answered. He was the one to bring up the topic, but Andrew suddenly grew tired of it. He held up the half-finished paper frog between his index finger and his thumb for Betsy to see. “We talked a bit about origami. I found a video that shows how to make leap frogs.”_ _

__Betsy smiled and went along with the subject change. “I have a couple books on origami I think you would enjoy. I can let you borrow them if you’d like. There’s some pretty neat stuff in there.”_ _

__Andrew set down his frog and traded it for the hot chocolate. It was still too hot, and it scalded his throat on the way down, but the marshmallows made the chocolate even sweeter. He swirled the mug, watching the white from the marshmallows mix with the dark chocolate._ _

__He nodded, and let Betsy steer the conversation into a different direction._ _

____

_ _

“No more paper swans?”

Andrew looked up from the paper in front of him, half-hidden in his hands and in the process of becoming a frog like a reverse fairy-tail prince. Neil had one elbow propped on the desk next to Andrew’s, his chin cradled in the palm of his hand. He had scars on his hands too, long thin cuts on long thin fingers and more of the same circular burn scars that adorned his face. Andrew wanted to ask how he got them, but he didn’t think he’d get an answer. 

“Cranes,” Andrew corrected. “And I got bored of them.” 

The bell rang before Neil could say anything else. His lips flattened into a displeased line and he pushed out of the desk to slide in his own seat across the classroom. Andrew watched him go before turning back to his work. 

Mrs. Hallerd didn’t confiscate the paper frog this time, and Andrew pressed the back of it down when he’d finished it. The frog hopped forward, and Andrew let it hop across his desk before glancing in Neil’s direction. A part of him hoped to catch Neil’s eye, but Neil was dutifully copying down the list of equations Hallerd had written on the board. Sullen, Andrew shoved the paper frog to the corner of his desk and turned his attention to the blank page of his notebook. 

After class, Neil waited by the door with his hand wrapped around the strap of his backpack. That was new; Neil was usually the first out the door, disappearing into the hall before the last bell had even rung. But today he waited for Andrew to pack his bag and get up from his seat. 

“A frog,” Neil said when Andrew drew close. They picked their way through the hall, dodging other students rushing to their classes to avoid getting an elbow in the face. 

“Congrats,” Andrew replied. “You know your animals. When are you graduating preschool?”

Neil shot him a look over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. “What do I win?”

“You don’t.”

Neil didn’t seem perturbed by Andrew’s short answer. He shook his head in mock disappointment. “And to think you were warming up to me.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes but Neil didn’t catch it since he was still a step ahead of him. “Don’t you have a class to go to?” he said to Neil’s back. 

“You’re going to English?” Neil shrugged, unconcerned. “My US History class is on the way.” 

Andrew shot him a quick look at that. “You’re a junior?”

US History wasn’t a class that seniors usually took, unless they needed to retake the class, but calculus was definitely not a class for juniors, either. Neil glanced at him and away again. His face had gone blank. “I’m a senior. My old school didn’t offer the class and it’s a requirement here, so.”

“Where did you move from?” Andrew asked. He didn’t know why he cared, or why he wanted to know these things about Neil. But Neil was interesting and Andrew wanted to piece him together like a puzzle until all his loose ends matched to form a coherent picture. No one knew anything about Neil, and Andrew found himself wanting to pick him apart to figure out why. 

Neil hesitated for a beat too long, his body tensing like a bird poised for flight. If Andrew hadn’t been paying so close attention, he would have missed it. 

“California,” he said at length. He avoided Andrew’s eye, but he watched the space around him. It was something Andrew used to do when he was younger, when looking directly at an angry person would make them angrier, but not looking at all would give zero warning for potential violence. 

It was a defense mechanism, and one Andrew was very familiar with. _Interesting,_ he thought, and dropped the subject. 

When they got to Andrew’s classroom, Neil turned to leave but Andrew caught his shirt sleeve. His expression was confused but Andrew just pressed the origami frog in his hand. There was a brief moment where Andrew’s fingers grazed Neil’s palm but Andrew forced himself to keep his eyes on Neil’s face.

“History is boring,” Andrew said. “Take the frog.”

Neil curled his fingers around the origami, not enough to crush it, and tucked it in his pocket. The warning bell rang overhead and Andrew retreated into the classroom thinking about the way Neil had held the paper frog so carefully in his hand.

_ _

Four paper frogs were lined up on Andrew’s desk, each equal distance from each other. One was large and made of pinstriped green paper, but the other three were smaller, made of lined paper with ragged edges where it was torn from a notebook. He dumped the three. He swept them from his desk and into the wastebasket waiting below.

There was a fifth frog somewhere, the one Andrew had given Neil the other day. Andrew wondered if he had kept it or if he had also thrown it away. 

Andrew didn’t get the chance to ask, because Neil was absent from calculus. His seat was empty and when Mrs. Hallerd called his name during roll call she was met with silence. It rang in Andrew’s ears, and it bothered him that he noticed at all. 

Andrew didn’t miss Neil, he was just _familiar._ That fact that Andrew had grown used to talking to Neil everyday bothered him too. He didn’t like that he knew Neil wasn’t actually quiet, but witty and sharper than the knife Andrew kept under his pillow. He hated that Nel’s absence felt like a missed-step at the top of the stairs, making him stumble in the darkness. 

It made him want to go home and not leave him room until Neil forgot about him, until Andrew didn’t look forward to seeing Neil enough to notice when he was gone. 

Halfway through English class, Andrew took the bathroom pass and left with his backpack over his shoulder. His teacher hardly spared him a look – he was a staunch believer that students knew their own bathroom needs and didn’t need permission to go, which Andrew appreciated. He had used this small window of opportunity to escape from class more than once. 

The hallways were empty when Andrew walked through them. 

His footsteps muffled by the old carpet under his feet, he heard nothing but the murmur of voices from the classrooms when he passed by and the occasional _chik-chik-chik_ of a struggling printer. He didn’t see anyone else on the way to the bathroom. It reminded Andrew a little of walking down a deserted street at night, no sign of people other than a lit window a few houses down. It was a different sort of loneliness, knowing that there were people behind a door or just out of reach and he was removed from all of it. It was a quietness that settled in his chest and made the feeling of being _alone_ even more intense. 

The sight in the bathroom brought Andrew up short. 

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t this – Neil crouched under the sink, small body folded in on itself and arms hugging legs. He had his head pushed between his knees, hiding his face up to his ears. 

He seemed okay, physically at least. He was unharmed from what Andrew could see, and there wasn’t any blood on him or his t-shirt or his faded, worn-out jeans. There were no bruises or cuts and he looked the way he always did, except smaller, like he was trying to fold himself into a tiny enough point in order to vanish completely. 

Neil didn’t look up when Andrew approached, but his body tensed when he sat down next to him under the sink. 

“Weird place to hide when you’re skipping class,” Andrew intoned, eyeing the graffiti and suspicious stains on the stalls across from them. He didn’t even want to think about the floor they sat on, or the sinks above their heads. 

Neil didn’t respond, but Andrew saw his eyes peek out from under his arm. Andrew gave him an unimpressed look and motioned to the dirty bathroom. “Any reason why we’re here?”

“You followed me in here,” Neil said, voice hoarse at the edges. He lifted his head enough for Andrew to glimpse the dark circles hanging under his eyes, the cracks in his expression. After too many restless nights spent tossing and turning, Andrew often looked the same. 

“This,” Andrew said, motioning around them with a lazy flick of his hand, “is purely coincidental. You didn’t answer my question.”

Neil huffed out a harassed sigh and rested his chin against his knees. His brow was furrowed as he stared at the space between the first and second stall. Throat working, he said, “There’s just a lot of people here.”

Andrew figured he didn’t mean _here_ , specifically, since it was just the two of them sitting on the school bathroom floor. 

“Everyone is going to be coming in and out of here when the bell rings,” Andrew said. “Your hideout will be exposed.”

Neil shrugged. “I’ll handle it when the bell rings, then.”

Andrew kicked Neil’s foot with the toe of his boot. A glance at his phone told him they had ten minutes left before the bell rang and released the multitudes. “We could get out of here,” Andrew suggested, casual.

Neil narrowed his eyes at him, lips thinned into a considering line. 

“Never ditched school before?” Andrew asked. 

“I have,” Neil said curtly. “But not with someone I hardly know.”

“Whatever,” Andrew said, pushing himself up. He hooked the bathroom pass on the nozzle of the sink and made for the exit. “I’m going to get some food. Come with or don’t.”

Andrew let the bathroom door close behind him without waiting to see whether or not Neil would follow.

__

Andrew took Neil to Sweeties, the second-best place to be in the time of a crisis. The first was Bee’s office, but Andrew didn’t think Neil would react well if he took him to see his therapist.

Sweeties was near empty when they arrived, the only other customers being an elderly couple seated across the diner who Andrew knew to be regulars. Nicky wasn’t working that day, but the cashier recognized Andrew and greeted him when they walked in. Andrew acknowledged this with a nod and brought Neil to his booth at the back of the diner, where the red faux-leather seats were worn and creased from years of people sitting in them.

Neil didn’t say anything the entire time they walked from school to the diner, and he said nothing now. While they waited for the waitress to come to take their orders, his eyes skipped around the room, taking in the scuffed black and white tiling and the chipped blue paint on the walls. 

Andrew watched him curiously. Sweeties wasn’t particularly glamorous and it leaned heavily into an out-dated, retro style, but Andrew had spent countless nights sat at this table with Aaron, waiting for Nicky to get off his shift. Aaron always had his homework spread out on the table, but Andrew liked to people watch and let his mind wander. There was nothing special about Sweeties, but Andrew felt oddly defensive of it.

“It’s a trash heap,” he said a moment later, flicking his fingers in dismissal. “But the food is decent.”

“It’s not that bad,” Neil said and sat facing the door. He clasped his hands in front of him, so tightly his scarred knuckles turned pale. He was quiet for a long moment before he said, “I won’t talk about it with you.” 

Andrew knew he wasn’t referring to the diner.

“Obviously,” he said. Andrew didn’t bring Neil here to interrogate him, and he hardly expected Neil to suddenly open up to him. Neil didn’t seem like the share-your-feelings type, and Andrew usually wasn’t one to pry into other people’s business. Usually he just didn’t care enough to. 

Andrew was curious, but Neil’s shoulders lowered a fraction in relief when he realized Andrew wasn’t about to grill him over hot coals for information so he left him alone. 

A moment later, the waitress came with a pen and notepad in hand and flipped it open with a smile. Andrew ordered the Sweeties’ special, an ice cream sundae with chocolate and caramel drizzle, whipped cream, chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, and two cherries on top. Neil got fries.

“That’s not food,” Neil said when Andrew’s sundae arrived in all its sugary glory. His voice was still scratchy, but he looked less wary than he did in the school bathroom.

Andrew plucked the two cherries off and abandoned them on a napkin before digging into his sundae. He motioned to Neil’s side of fries with his ice cream-laden spoon. “Neither is that,” he retorted. Neil responded with a shrug and ate another fry. 

They ate in silence, Neil nibbling at his fries and Andrew methodically picking out every chocolate chip to eat first. Occasionally Andrew would glance at Neil, but Neil’s gaze was always focused on the table in front of him, or out the large window that overlooked the parking lot underneath the cloudy sky. 

Andrew liked this look on him better. Neil still looked worn out and wrung thin, but the glint in his eyes was sharper, lacking the faraway glassiness he had in the bathroom. He plucked at his fries and inspected one before trying to wipe off some of the salt. Andrew watched with something close to fascination, before Neil glanced up and caught him. Andrew raised a mocking eyebrow, but Neil shrugged again and jammed the fry in his mouth.

Rather than studying Neil and cataloguing any cracks he could find in his mask, Andrew turned back to his half-melted ice cream and smushed it down with the back of his spoon. The chocolate syrup mixed with the vanilla ice cream, making a sort of unappetizing sludge of gray melted ice cream and rainbow sprinkles mixed throughout it. Andrew pushed it away from him, jostling the napkin-boat of forgotten cherries. His appetite still hadn’t recovered, not even for ice cream. Andrew wondered idly if this was something he should mention to Betsy.

Neil took this as the cue that they were leaving and dumped the rest of his fries into the nearby trash can. Andrew threw down a couple bills and followed suit before they filed out of Sweeties, the cashier calling out a goodbye behind them. 

They walked back to the school in that same easy silence. Class was getting out when they arrived, and Andrew knew that Nicky would be waiting for him and Aaron in the parking lot. Before Andrew could leave, Neil turned to him quickly, head dipped low to his chest.

“Thanks,” he murmured, meeting Andrew’s eyes for a fleeting moment before stepping back and disappearing into the crowd of milling students. Andrew stared after him, a strange feeling growing in his chest. 

Before he could puzzle it out, he heard Nicky call his name and saw him wave, leaning half-way out the window of the car idling by the sidewalk. Aaron was already seated inside and he slanted Andrew a suspicious look when he slid into the passenger seat. 

“How were your classes?” Nicky chirped as he pulled out of the parking lot, effectively cutting off whatever biting remark Aaron had saved for Andrew. 

Aaron snorted. Andrew shrugged. Neither of them peeled their gazes from their respective windows. 

Nicky sighed. “I’ll take that to mean they went well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact! i didn't know how to make paper cranes while i wrote this fic. i only taught myself a couple weeks ago at work, when this was pretty much finished. i still don't know how to make origami frogs
> 
> i hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!! thank you so much for reading and thank you for leaving kudos/comments!! reading the comments from last chapter made me super happy so thank you <3 i look forward to posting chapter 3 next week :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy monday everybody! i hope you enjoy the latest chapter :")

When Andrew got to his first period class the next day, he was called into the Dean’s office and promptly suspended for skipping school. He had to stay in the waiting room-like office on an uncomfortable plastic chair until Nicky could arrive and sign him out. Andrew was eighteen, but that didn’t mean anything to the Dean, who glared at him over a stack of paperwork until Nicky stumbled into the office with apologies and half-hearted promises that this wouldn’t happen again, something both Nicky and Andrew knew was a lie. 

He was suspended for a week. He expected Nicky to be disappointed, but he said nothing about it on the ride home except a gentle broach as to why Andrew had skipped school yesterday. But Andrew sat in sullen silence, staring out the window until Nicky let the subject drop. 

Nicky had to leave work to pick Andrew up and use all the time on his lunch break, a fact that he made sure to complain loudly about, but in a way Andrew knew that Nicky would not hold it against him. He made sure Andrew would be alright alone, as if Andrew hadn’t managed to keep himself alive thus far, and disappeared out back the door with a promise to bring food back from Sweeties. 

Andrew didn’t feel guilty, and he didn’t feel regret, but he wondered if he should. He wondered if Nicky was upset with him or if Bee would be disappointed in him. He imagined her slight frown, quickly hiding it behind her mug of cocoa, and maybe felt something close to discomfort. 

But then he thought back to Neil huddled underneath the bathroom sink, looking so worn out and tired of the world, an expression Andrew has seen on his own face so many times. He remembered Neil’s quiet _thanks_ , his face half-hidden, before he disappeared again. Andrew didn’t believe in regret, didn’t believe that it would change the past or make him feel better about it, and he certainly didn’t regret taking Neil to Sweeties. 

Andrew passed the time watching an old crime show filled to the brim with melodrama and bad acting until Aaron came home from school. He didn’t pause on his way to the kitchen for a snack, but he spared Andrew a glance and let him know that Nicky would have to work later, and he wouldn’t be home until dinner. Andrew responded with a grunt; his eyes glued to the detective on the television revealing a particularly gruesome detail from the crime scene.

There was the sound of rustling around the kitchen, cupboards opening and closing, the clink of glass against the counter, before Aaron slumped into the armchair furthest away from Andrew with a bowl of captain crunch cereal cradled in his hands. Andrew kicked a pillow at him for eating his cereal, but Aaron batted it to the floor. 

“This show is trash,” he said through a mouthful of sugary cereal. 

Andrew grunted again in acquiescence but didn’t move to change the channel. He wondered what had put Aaron in such a good mood. Usually he’d go straight to his room or nag at Andrew to let him use the TV so he could play Call of Duty. But he almost looked at ease, hunched in the armchair with his legs thrown over the armrest. He definitely didn’t look as angry as he usually did. It was weird.

Andrew narrowed his eyes at the TV but said nothing. 

At dinner, the usual angry and tense Aaron returned over a plate of takeout pizza. When Nicky paused for a moment to breathe between a stream of chatter about his shift at Sweeties and a strange customer he served, Aaron butted in with a scathing glare. He addressed Andrew.

“Why are you hanging around with Neil Josten?”

Nicky’s expression was bemused as he glanced between Andrew and Aaron. When Aaron didn’t return his look, he faced his whole body toward Andrew and raised his eyebrows. With some irritation, Andrew noted that he was being interrogated. He suppressed a scowl and turned a bored expression onto his brother. 

“What’s it to you,” he said, but nothing in his monotone voice hinted at it being a question. Aaron bristled. 

“I don’t like him,” he said, as if Andrew had ever asked for his opinion. Nicky’s eyes flicked from Andrew to Aaron as he watched with rapt attention, unusually quiet for once. 

Andrew leveled a look on Aaron that said _I don’t really care what you think_ and tore off a piece of his pizza and stuffed it in his mouth. The savory taste of garlic and marinara was a welcome distraction when Aaron opened his mouth to fire something back at Andrew’s non-response, but Nicky interrupted his anger. 

“Who’s Neil Josten?” he asked, ever so nosy, and Aaron scoffed with such an acute level of disdain that Andrew was almost impressed. 

“The weird new kid at school,” he said, mouth wrenched in disgust. He hadn’t touched his pizza and he didn’t offer any more information, which told Andrew exactly how upset he was. Andrew refrained from rolling his eyes. He almost pointed out that Aaron used to be the weird druggie kid at school, but decided not to prod at old wounds. 

Nicky looked surprised at Aaron’s answer before his face morphed into one of excitement. “You have a friend?” he asked Andrew, before realizing how that must have sounded and rallied with a large smile. “What’s he like? Is he nice? Are you two getting along? Well, I mean, obviously you are if you’re hanging out with him. You two _are_ hanging out right? Oh, Andrew this is _so_ great.”

“He’s not my friend,” Andrew said, interrupting before Nicky could ask more questions Andrew wasn’t going to answer. 

Nicky’s face fell but Aaron clearly wasn’t happy with that response because he said, “He’s the one Andrew skipped school with yesterday. He’s a bad influence and I don’t like him.”

Andrew suppressed a frown. He wanted to know how Aaron found out. If he had seen Andrew leave the school with Neil or if someone had snitched to him. Nicky was a blabbermouth, but even he hadn’t spilled the reason why Andrew had gotten suspended, and Andrew would never willingly tell his brother anything, so Aaron must have gotten that information from _somewhere_. 

“Well,” Nicky said, dipping the rest of his crust into a cup of ranch, “maybe this Neil kid will be good for Andrew. Don’t look at me like that, you two. I have a good feeling.”

__

The day was a little warmer than it had been for the past week, a slight breeze stirring the few leaves left clinging to the oak tree Andrew had parked under. A leaf, dislodged from its branch, floated to the ground in a serpentine twirl and landed on a pile of dirt and twigs. Andrew leaned against the hood of his car and watched its slow, dancing descent while he waited for his brother to show his ugly face. Practice was supposed to be out twenty minutes ago, but Aaron was nowhere to be seen.

Since Andrew was suspended, he was benched and not allowed to go to Exy practice, which was fine by him. It was boring watching a bunch of jocks throw a ball and swing a stick, and not even the boys clad in tiny shorts and heavy body armor could hold Andrew’s interest for very long. He barely put any effort in during practice, preferring to zone out and wait for the whistle that signalled the end of the day. 

Despite his lack of interest in the game, his coaches wouldn’t throw him off the team because he could shut down a goal like nobody’s business. But the trip to the Dean’s office that resulted in Andrew’s suspension also warned him that he probably wouldn’t be playing for the rest of the season. One of his coaches had thrown a fit at the news, which was at least marginally amusing to watch. 

The only reason Andrew was at the school at all was because Nicky had a late shift at Eden’s tonight and Andrew had spotted his exhaustion a mile away. Without Andrew’s intervention, Nicky would have burnt himself out into a snotty ball of tears again. So he unplugged his alarm clock and took the keys to pick Aaron up himself. Andrew would wake him up with just enough time to get to work without being late and deal with Nicky’s complaints about oversleeping later.

Andrew checked the clock on his dash. It’s been twenty-six minutes since practice got out, and Aaron was still not here. Wondering what trouble Aaron was getting into and whether he should go fish him out of it, Andrew lit up a cigarette and took a drag, letting the burning smoke fill his lungs. He cupped his hand around the glowing cherry to shield it from the wind and let all the smoke out in one, long exhale. Then he noticed someone who wasn’t his brother approaching him from the corner of his eye.

Andrew quirked an eyebrow, curious as to why anyone thought it would be a good idea to come up to him. He made the person wait until he finished his cigarette before he pinned them with a deadpan stare. Suddenly it made a lot more sense. The only person dumb enough or brave enough to approach Andrew was, of course, Neil.

Neil, fresh off the track and dressed in running shorts and a gray t-shirt, his sweaty hair pushed back off his forehead with an disgustingly orange bandana. Andrew had never seen Neil in anything but a patchy hoodie and jeans before, and the sight caught him off guard. The burn scars on his hands and face lined the majority of his forearms as well, and there was more muscle and tanned skin than Andrew had anticipated. Andrew tore his eyes away, not wanting to make Neil uncomfortable, but the image of strong, runner’s thighs was already burned into his mind. 

“Hey,” Neil said. His lips quirked upwards when he caught Andrew’s attention. Andrew marveled at it. “Heard you got suspended.”

Surprise, surprise. The whole school seemed to know about it at this point.

“I thought you’d be bored, having to stay home all day,” Neil continued. Andrew squinted at him, wondering where this was going. “So, I thought I would give you this.”

He held out his hand, his fist closed around something small. Andrew eyed him warily before he dropped his cigarette to the asphalt and ground it out with the heel of his boot. He let Neil place a folded piece of paper into his open palm and at closer inspection, Andrew found that it was one of those finger fortune tellers, very small and crudely made with all sides blank. Andrew frowned at it. 

He turned the fortune teller over in his hand and looked back at Neil for an answer. “It’s the only thing I know how to make with paper,” he sheepishly explained. 

Andrew raised his eyebrows at him. That really didn’t clear anything up.

“Suspension is boring,” Neil said, a hint of a smile on his lips, and Andrew recognized his own words being reflected back at him. “Take the fortune teller.”

Then he retreated with an awkward half-wave and left Andrew only a little confused. He looked down at the tiny fortune teller, a little crumpled from manhandling. He opened it up, undid the flaps like he would if he was playing the game, and found a phone number scribbled in pencil underneath one of them. 

Andrew’s fingers tightened around the paper fortune teller. Neil had given him his number. Probably. Maybe. Andrew wasn’t sure what other number Neil might have given him. It could have been a math equation that Andrew was meant to solve, but he really didn’t think so.

When he looked up, Neil was already back on the track, running laps like he was training for the Olympics. He easily outran everyone on the field and he didn’t pay them any more attention than noting where they were so he could dart around them. Andrew wondered if he would join the track team, now that the season was starting up. Something told him that that was unlikely.

Aaron chose that moment to show, plopping his sports duffel on the floor. He yanked at the door handle before Andrew snapped at him to stop it so he could unlock the door. Aaron rolled his eyes and shoved his bag into the back seat before following after it. 

“I thought practice got out thirty minutes ago,” Andrew said, jamming the keys into the ignition. 

Aaron didn’t raise his head from his chin or take his eyes from the window. His cheeks were rosy, his hair a mess. Andrew didn’t think it was from the cold wind outside. He said, “I thought Josten wasn’t your friend.”

Andrew didn’t have a response to that, so he cranked up the music until Aaron’s strangely calm expression morphed into the familiar one of annoyance and slammed his foot on the gas pedal.

_ _

Andrew spent the rest of his suspension holed up at the house alternating between watching the Great British Bake Off and checking his phone for any new texts from Neil. He rarely responded, but that didn’t stop Neil from sending mundane updates from calculus, which consisted of comments about the menial classwork or, more commonly, tiny drawings doodled in the margins of his notebook.

It turns out, when Andrew saw Neil studiously bent over his notebook taking down notes in class, half the time he was actually doodling. 

The latest of Neil’s drawings was a skull with a cigarette clamped in a rictus grin. It was squeezed next to a drawing of a bicycle with a missing wheel, and scrawled underneath it was a pointed “smoking kills” in Neil’s cramped handwriting. Andrew sent back a picture of his middle finger.

Moments later, a chat bubble popped up.

Neil: _What are you watching?_

It took Andrew a moment to realize the picture he sent showed a corner of the TV, the screen a blur of colors as Andrew’s favored contestant fucked up the frosting on his cupcakes. Andrew rethought who he wanted to win. Anyone who fucked up the best part of a cupcake didn’t deserve to win.

Andrew texted back, _great british bake off_

Neil’s reply came quick. _What’s that?_

Vaguely insulted, Andrew left him on read and dropped his phone on the cushion beside him. His phone buzzed with another message, but Andrew ignored it. It was only when he checked in again during dinner that he found another doodle from Neil; Pacman eating math equations and running from angry ghosts that wore glasses with horn-rimmed frames. Andrew felt his lips twitch in an unexpected flicker of a smile.

He opened the message to tap out a reply.

Andrew: _do you ever pay attention in class_

As usual, Neil’s response was immediate. _Not really. Math is easy._

Andrew scoffed in disgust. He turned off his phone and looked up to find Aaron and Nicky both openly staring at him. They both looked surprised, but where Nicky was wide-eyed, Aaron was displeased.

“Who are you texting? Nicky asked, undeterred by Andrew’s glare. “Is it Neil?”

“Leave me alone,” Andrew snapped and stabbed at a piece of corn with his fork. He hated that Nicky of all people had noticed his preoccupation with his phone. Nicky never noticed _anything._

Nicky put his hands up in a placating gesture. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said, as if he didn’t very much want Andrew to tell him. “It’s just that you never text anyone. Like, ever. Not even me, and I send you stuff all the time.”

“You send stupid stuff,” Andrew said as his phone buzzed in his hands again. Nicky pouted, but he went back to his enchilada and left Andrew to check the new message in peace.

Neil: _Hang out later?_

 _An escape_ , Andrew thought. He quickly sent his response and tapped his thumbs on the side of his phone, waiting for Neil’s reply.

Andrew: _where_

Neil: _Park._

Andrew: _yes_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this weekend has been so busy, i was worried i wouldn't be able to post on time! 
> 
> thank you so much for reading and commenting, it means the world!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy friday everyone!! i'm super excited for y'all to read this chapter, it's one of my favorites :")
> 
> TW: discussion of murder and violence, discussion of mental health, brief mention of self-harm

“I’m sorry, but that’s fucking stupid,” Neil said, not sounding the least bit sorry. He had turned sideways in the swing, legs straddling either side of the seat so he faced Andrew next to him. He kept fiddling with an old walkman in his lap, though it was turned off and the earbuds were wrapped loosely around it, the ratty ends of his hoodie pulled over his fingers to ward off the biting cold. “If you tried to take four people on a supply run, you’re dead. You’d die. There’s no way.”

Biting back on the impulse to roll his eyes, Andrew quietly crossed Neil’s name out on the mental list of people he’d protect in the event of a zombie apocalypse. He shifted on his own swing, the chain digging uncomfortably into his back where he was twisted in the seat. He had one foot pulled up in front of him and the other one on the ground, the toe of his boot scraping the woodchips under the swingset as he rocked it back and forth. 

“Maybe you can’t keep your mouth shut long enough to stock up, but me and my people can,” Andrew shot back. He immediately thought of Nicky as he said this, and chose not to acknowledge that Nicky definitely would not be able to keep his mouth shut if there was a horde of zombies close by. He tossed this thought aside as inconsequential; he refused to concede that Neil had a point. 

“Whatever,” Neil muttered. He twisted the cord of one earbud around his finger, looping it around twice before letting it unravel again. “All I know is I’m better off by myself. There’s no one you have to worry about when you’re a one-man army.”

“Some army,” Andrew said, raising an eyebrow at Neil’s thin frame and short stature. Neil huffed and nudged Andrew in the shin with his foot. Andrew aimed a kick back in retaliation but Neil dodged the attack, swinging one earbud so it smacked Andrew in the middle of the chest. 

“Ha,” he said smugly. “I won.”

“You didn’t win shit,” Andrew said and shoved Neil’s swing away with his foot. In the middle of the push, Andrew forgot about gravity and didn’t remember until Neil came careening back into him. During the ensuing tussle, Andrew snatched the walkman from Neil’s unresisting fingers and inspected it. 

“Why do you have this, anyway?” he asked, unraveling the earbuds so he could get a closer look at it. The dull red exterior was made of hard plastic and rattled slightly when Andrew shook it. He didn’t think it was supposed to do that. There was a dent in the side of it, and the _Sony_ label had all but faded with age. Andrew turned it over in his hands, feeling the bumps and scratches against his calloused palms. There were deep grooves on the back of the walkman that might have been caused by being dropped and dragged across pavement. There was a tape inside, Andrew noticed. “They went obsolete two decades ago.”

Neil was quiet for a moment, and Andrew wondered if this was one of those things he should leave alone. Talking to Neil was like walking through a field riddled with landmines - something Andrew recognized in himself - and something seemingly as innocuous as an old cassette player could set off a chain-reaction of explosions. Andrew had learned to tread carefully. 

Still, sometimes he stepped a little too close to a boundary, and Neil’s gaze would cloud over and he’d withdraw, snapping shut so abruptly it’s like he was never there.

But Neil’s eyes were clear, his hands steady as he took the walkman Andrew passed back to him. He straightened in his seat, facing forward and rocked on the toes of his scuffed sneakers, pushing the swing forward and back again. It was a while before he spoke, and when he answered his voice held a wistful quality to it. 

“It belonged to my mom, when she was my age,” he said. “I found it in her things when…”

Sensing that Neil would need a moment, Andrew pulled out his pack of cigarettes from where it had been squashed flat in his back pocket. He shook two out into the palm of his hand, but only lit one when Neil slowly shook his head. The other he tucked behind his ear for later. Neil had told him days ago that he took more comfort in the smell of cigarettes than the actual act of smoking them, and there was no point in wasting perfectly good nicotine.

Neil waited until Andrew had taken a long drag from the cigarette and exhaled the cloud of smoke from his lungs before he continued. He was still facing forward, so Andrew took the opportunity to study his profile, long eyelashes fluttering against cheeks, rosy from the cold. He had a small mole tucked underneath his ear, darker than the rest of the freckles Andrew could pick out between his scars. 

“She died about a year ago,” Neil whispered, hedging a look at Andrew, still not turning all the way to face him. Andrew held his gaze. “My father killed her.”

Neil wavered, searching Andrew’s face, but Andrew kept his expression neutral. If Neil was looking for judgement or disgust, revulsion or even fear, he would not find it in him. Andrew blinked slowly, projecting calm despite the curiosity pulling taut the thin threads in his chest. 

“Is he dead?” Andrew asked. He meant if Neil was safe, and Neil seemed to understand the hidden meaning behind Andrew’s words. His shoulders slumped with quiet relief as he nodded. 

“My uncle killed him,” he said. Andrew’s eyebrow twitched at that. He had seen Neil’s uncle before, glimpsed him when he picked Neil up from school in a sleek, expensive-looking sports car. Andrew didn’t think anyone that wore gray tailored suits and polished cufflinks was capable of getting their hands dirty, but Andrew figured this wasn’t a simple dispute between in-laws that went too far. 

Neil’s hands clenched in his lap. “My family is so fucked.”

Andrew shrugged lazily, shoulder pushing painfully against the chain. “Welcome to the club,” he said casually, which startled a laugh out of Neil.

“Oh, but your brother seems perfectly pleasant,” Neil shot back. 

Andrew snorted. “I wouldn’t know. I hardly know the guy.”

Neil’s brow furrowed, his lips quirking downward in confusion, and Andrew wondered if he should enlighten him. 

Taking another drag from the cigarette, Andrew leaned back in the swing, letting his head thud against the chain. He stared up at the slate-gray sky, the light dying as the sun sagged on the horizon, as if it was too heavy for the sky to hold. He thought about secrets and truths, things he’d never shared with anyone before. He thought of pain and different kinds of hurts, his mind turning from his own scars to the ones he knew were littered along Neil’s body, even if he’d never seen them before. 

Neil was still watching him. The cigarette burned and Andrew felt the flicker of its heat against his fingers. He wondered if he should let it burn until the flame licked his skin and left it raw. Secrets, truths, the certainty of getting burned. 

“Our good-for-nothing mother put me in a foster home when I was a couple days old,” Andrew said at last. He tossed the half-finished cigarette away and watched as Neil stamped it out with his shoe. “She kept Aaron.”

“Oh,” Neil said, voice quiet. “Is that why you hate him?”

The question wasn’t what Andrew had expected, and it twisted something ugly up inside of him, a sharp hook to his sternum that should have knocked the breath out of him. Suddenly, he wished he hadn’t thrown away that cigarette. 

Andrew thought about ignoring the question, wondered if he could pretend not to hear Neil over the whistling breeze and go back to talking about zombie contingency plans. Instead, he kicked a woodchip with as much derision as he could muster from his position on the swing and took a quick breath. 

He thought about the question, head inclined towards Neil but eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of him. He wanted to hate Aaron. As much as he was angry with him for taking Tilda’s side - and he was, oh, he was _furious_ \- he couldn’t hate his brother, and he told Neil as such.

Andrew just wasn’t so sure his brother didn’t hate him.

All the cold silences and biting words after Tilda’s death. Aaron’s hard eyes a glimpse away from loathing. The tense line of his shoulders and angry furrows in his brow, lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. A gesture so similar to Tilda’s that Andrew couldn’t stand to look at it. Fights so explosive not even Nicky could soothe. 

“Aaron didn’t have it any better. I bounced from shitty house to shitty house and he got a shitty mother who beat him. We were both fucked.” 

“Is she gone?” Neil asked, repeating Andrew’s question with the same hidden undertones.

Andrew nodded. “She wouldn’t stop hitting Aaron, even after I asked oh-so nicely. I got rid of her in a car crash.”

It was Andrew’s turn to study Neil’s expression as he said this, carefully keeping his own face devoid of any emotion, but Neil looked as if Andrew had commented on the weather rather than uttered a confession of murdering his mother. 

“I wish I had been the one to kill my father,” Neil said calmly, matter-of-factly. Andrew watched him trace the scars on the back of his hand and around his knuckles with the tip of his finger almost absentmindedly. He shivered. “It should have been me.”

Andrew didn’t know the full story, but Neil had given him enough to start stitching together some semblance of one. He could only guess, but Andrew had a pretty good idea where those scars came from. Or who gave them to him. 

A sharp smile curved across Neil’s face, sudden and unusual. It split open his face to reveal a sudden viciousness that was at contrast with the shifty, quiet runner Andrew had always known him as. It was the first time Andrew had seen Neil smile, and it was a frightful thing. It stretched all the way to his eyes, making the usual summer-blue look like chips of frigid ice. Neil bared his teeth in that malicious smile and Andrew noticed that one of his front teeth was chipped. 

The walkman lay abandoned in Neil’s lap as he dug his fingers in his cheeks, nails leaving half-moon imprints in his scars, as he tried to claw the smile off. Andrew slowly, as to not startle him, sat forward in his seat and reached up to pry Neil’s hands away from his face, setting them in his lap and wrapping his fingers around his old walkman. He squeezed his hands until he was sure Neil wouldn’t try to mar his face again, then removed them completely. Neil nodded again in thanks and let out a shuddery breath that released all the tension and cruelty that Andrew had glimpsed in him.

“I hate them,” he said, and it took Andrew a moment to realize Neil meant his scars. “I hate them so much. I can’t stand the way people look at me. They attract so much attention.”

“They are proof you survived.” Andrew thought of his own scars, the neat lines up and down his arms, evidence that he had survived what happened to him, too. “You are here and he is dead. He will never hurt you again.”

“You and I both know that that’s not true,” Neil said hollowly. He looked exhausted.

Andrew knew the feeling. He slipped the second cigarette from behind his ear and lit it up, passing it to Neil after taking a puff to get the cherry burning. Neil accepted it without a word and waved it in front of his face, scattering the smoke in the air. They passed it back and forth for a while until Neil reached for his cassette and handed one earbud to Andrew, placing the other firmly in his ear.

When Andrew put the earbud in, Neil clicked a button on the walkman and soft music began to filter through. It wasn’t music that Andrew expected, but each word and chord seemed to ease more tension out of Neil’s body until he almost looked relaxed. 

“Who is this?” Andrew asked, mid-way through a man singing over piano chords. 

Neil blinked, like he’d forgotten where he was. “Oh,” he said after a moment. “Del Water Gap.”

The name sounded familiar, although the song was not. It only took a moment for Andrew to place where he’d heard the singer before. Nicky sometimes played Del Water Gap on laundry days or when he drove Andrew and Aaron to school in the mornings. Andrew frowned. “I didn’t know you could get tapes for anything made past the 90’s,” he said.

Neil’s cheeks grew pink and Andrew didn’t know if it was from embarrassment or from the biting chill. “I’m not sure if you can. Uncle Stuart gets me blank tapes and I record the songs myself from the radio.”

Andrew stared at him. He didn’t know if he wanted to call Neil stupid, or kiss him stupid. 

_That_ particular thought was as sudden as it was dismaying, and Andrew shoved it to the back of his mind to be analyzed at a better time. It was the hardest thing Andrew had to do since getting away with murder.

“Why paper cranes?” Neil asked suddenly, causing Andrew’s short-circuiting brain to reboot. His cigarette was almost gone and a song about being a better man faded away. He’d missed the entire song.

“Why not,” Andrew grunted, willing the redness in his own cheeks to disappear. With a cigarette no longer there to occupy him, Andrew scratched at a part of the swing where the paint was starting to flake, chipping it further with his fingernail. He couldn’t look at Neil without noticing the deep blue of his eyes or the softness of his curls, his lean body huddled under a worn hoodie just a foot away. He’d always noticed Neil – he knew that Neil was _attractive_ \- but now he was distracting.

“I don’t know,” Neil said. “Why did you start making them?”

Andrew had already told Neil so much in the past hour, and he wasn’t sure how much else he really wanted to reveal. But Neil watched him carefully, like Andrew watched him, and he always gave when he took. 

“It helps,” he said eventually. “My therapist suggested it.”

Neil made a face between surprise and confusion. “You have to see a shrink?”

“I do not _have_ to,” Andrew clarified. “I choose to. And she helps.”

“Sure.” Neil didn’t sound convinced.

Annoyance flickered in Andrew’s chest at the uncertainty on Neil’s face. “Fuck you,” he said, agitated. He could almost hear the gentle reprimand that Betsy would give him if she were here, but Andrew ignored it.

“Whatever,” Neil huffed, fiddling with the ragged sleeves of his hoodie. They slid back enough for Andrew to see the silvery scars criss-crossing the back of Neil’s hands tighten when he clenched and unclenched his hands. He yanked his sleeves down again. 

Two whole songs played before Neil spoke up. There was no trace of mockery in his voice when he said, “I just don’t get why you would want to have someone pull out all your secrets and then judge you for it. It sounds awful.”

Sometimes it was awful. Sometimes it left Andrew waterlogged and worse-for-wear. Sometimes Andrew’s skin itched so badly after a session that he needed to take the car and drive thirty over the speed limit. But it mostly helped.

Andrew waited until the annoyance and frustration drained out of him, leaving nothing behind but the dredges of numbness. Betsy wouldn’t encourage tamping out the emotion he feels when they’d spent many sessions trying to coax them out, but not every step was a step forward. 

Whatever. Two steps forward and one step back was still one step forward. 

“Bee doesn’t judge me,” he said. Sometimes she was disapproving, but never judgmental. It was the only reason Andrew began to talk to her at all, instead of walking right out of her office and never looking back. She was the first in a line of therapists to get Andrew to return for another session. 

Neil pursed his lips before releasing a sigh. “Okay,” he said. “If a shrink - Bee - helps you, then okay.” 

Andrew took a deep breath to reel himself back in. He hadn’t expected Neil to concede so easily - but Neil’s expression was open, and there was no judgement in his gaze, either. Andrew felt suddenly exposed, raw and vulnerable as he looked at Neil and let Neil see him back. Bee would be proud, Andrew knew. He’d never before opened up to someone like this and it terrified him.

Why was Neil so different? Why did Andrew let Neil sneak past his walls and slowly break them down? Andrew knew how this would end; bruises and shards of glass, blood and a hollow, aching cavern in his chest. Exactly how everything in Andrew’s life ended. 

But then he looked at Neil and saw himself. Shattered pieces crudely arranged back together, cracks showing through a broken mask, a bone-deep understanding that Andrew glimpsed in the hollowness of his eyes, the cruel twist of his lips when he talked about his past. 

Andrew understood Neil, and despite himself, he’d begun to trust him. 

_Be proud of me, Bee_ , he thought wryly. 

“It’s getting late,” Andrew said when he couldn’t bear to have Neil see him anymore. 

Neil understood, fuck him, and nodded in acceptance. Andrew gave him back his earbud and Neil wrapped them around his walkman before hiding it away in the pocket of his hoodie. 

It started to snow as they walked to Andrew’s house, tiny snowflakes drifting through the air and melting on the sidewalk. It wasn’t cold enough for any snow to stick to the ground, but it was the first time it had snowed in South Carolina since Andrew got here. 

“Have you ever seen it snow before?” Neil asked. Andrew’s eyes darted to him, feeling caught. 

“It never snowed in California,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve only lived here for a couple years.”

Neil hummed. “I’ve been to a couple places where it snowed a lot.” At Andrew’s questioning look he said, “Germany, France. Russia, for a little bit. I was in Canada for a while too. We didn’t like to stay in one place for too long.”

“I hate the cold,” Andrew said.

“I hate California,” Neil responded. 

Andrew looked at him, then at the snow swirling in the air, and finally to his feet scuffing across the pavement as he walked. “Me too,” he admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets. He didn’t know if the tremor in them was from the cold or from this one last secret. 

They were silent for a long time, nothing except for the shrill cry of the wind to shatter the illusion of quiet. Andrew was hyper aware of Neil walking beside him. He didn’t ask Neil to accompany him back to his house - he never did - but Neil always walked with him whenever they hung out after dark. 

“My uncle wants me to go to therapy,” Neil said at last. He faced forward as he talked, hands fidgeting with the front pocket of his hoodie. “He’s always bringing it up and I always say no. I keep telling him that I’m fine.”

“You are not fine,” Andrew guessed and Neil nodded.

“I want to be,” he said, voice soft. 

Andrew’s mouth thinned. They were almost to his house. He could say goodbye now and send Neil on his way, forget about all that they had talked about and ignore the growing pulse of warmth in his stomach whenever he was near Neil, whenever he listened to him talk or offered him stories of his own. 

“I can teach you how to make paper cranes,” he offered instead. Neil had the audacity to look surprised, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. They’d reached the driveway and Andrew took the two steps that lead to the porch so he was several inches taller than Neil. 

“You don’t have to,” Neil said hesitantly. 

“Don’t be stupid,” responded Andrew.

Neil’s lip twitched upwards, the tiny beginnings of a true smile, so very different from the snarl of his mouth when he smiled before. “Okay.”

Andrew watched as that smile began to bloom, the warmth in his stomach swelling with it until it was too hard to ignore. A few flakes of snow had caught in Neil’s hair, white against red, and Andrew imagined curling his fingers in the collar of Neil’s hoodie and pulling him in and kissing him until they were both breathless. 

Instead he took a step back, heels scuffing the welcome mat Nicky had set out when they moved in. 

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” Andrew said, backing up until he could open the door without looking away from Neil. There was a spare key under the mat, but the door was unlocked. Nicky must have left it open for him.

“Goodnight,” Neil said. Andrew just barely saw his small wave and his even smaller smile before he shut the door behind him. He breathed out a sigh, head falling against the door with a thump, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i hope you enjoyed the chapter c:


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy monday everyone! i hope y'all are having a great one :]
> 
> i call this chapter: the opposite of twinyard bonding time
> 
> tw: fighting, arguing, a punch is thrown, a brief panic attack

Although he didn’t need to shower, Andrew was the last one out of the locker room like always. It was a habit born from not wanting anyone else to be around while he showered and undressed, and it was a hard one for Andrew to kick. Luckily, the rest of the team didn’t bother sticking around after tonight’s unfortunate end to the season. They’d lost the game, booting them out of Spring Championships, but Andrew couldn’t bring himself to care about something as worthless as Exy.

The cold air bit at his skin when he exited the locker room and Andrew pulled his jacket closer around him, tucking his fingers into the sleeves of the extra hoodie underneath. He almost expected Neil to be hanging around outside, but there was no one on the track and the parking lot was empty.

Mostly empty.

Illuminated by a beam of light from a streetlamp, Aaron sat on the hood of Andrew’s car; foot propped up on the bumper like he owned the thing. Nicky was nowhere to be seen, but Aaron wasn’t lacking in any company.

The girl he talked to wore the flashy orange and white uniform of the local Palmetto cheerleader, strawberry-blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail with a matching orange bow on top. Aaron smiled as he talked to her, a confident pull to his mouth as he leaned close to her and said something in her ear. The cheerleader giggled and placed her hand on Aaron’s chest, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. Andrew watched Aaron trailed his hand down her side to rest at her hip as a quiet fury bubbled in his chest.

Girls were trouble, fuel for Aaron’s addiction. Andrew didn’t care if the cheerleader was the goodie-two-shoes student aid at the front of the office. Andrew had spent too much of his time already keeping Aaron out of trouble, and here he was screwing it up again. Aaron couldn’t handle himself, and one slip up was all he needed to go tumbling down the dark path Andrew had dragged him out of, kicking and screaming almost a year and a half ago.

Aaron looked up and caught Andrew’s eye. The smile slid off his face but the cheerleader didn’t notice. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Aaron’s cheek, pulling his attention back to her as she placed another to his lips. Aaron smiled weakly and nodded as he pulled away, his eyes flicking back to Andrew. A moment later she waved a cheery goodbye, and then she was gone.

Aaron scrambled off the hood of Andrew’s car. He was tense as he watched Andrew approach, regarding him with a mix of scorn and apprehension. He opened his mouth – an excuse, an argument waiting to happen – but Nicky took that moment to return.

“Hey guys,” he said, his arms laden with wrapped hamburgers and hotdogs. “I sweet talked the PTA mom at the concession stand into giving us free food. Andrew, I got a few chocolate bars too. Uh – are you two alright?”

Andrew said nothing, his jaw clenched as tight as his fists.

“Fine,” Aaron responded, gaze glued firmly to the ground. He wouldn’t meet Andrew’s eyes and it made Andrew angrier.

“Okay…” Nicky said. His previous exuberant energy was gone, the free food he scored sagging sadly in his arms. “Andrew, you driving?”

Andrew tossed him the keys which Nicky only narrowly caught without dropping everything. Nicky looked between the twins, obviously trying to figure out why they were both so tense and coming to the wrong conclusion.

“I know that it sucks to lose so early in the season, especially during your senior year, but you had a fun go at it, didn’t you?” he said. “You had a lot of great wins. Like when you faced off against – oh, who was it – the Kings! You _smoked_ them – ”

“Let’s just go, Nicky,” Aaron mumbled, still staring at his feet.

Nicky frowned but unlocked the car after passing the food to Aaron to hold. He tossed the candy bars to Andrew, but Andrew hardly registered them landing in his lap. Aaron wouldn’t even look in his direction as he headed to the backseat. Andrew couldn’t tell if he felt guilty for breaking their deal, or just for getting caught.

The car ride home was tense and quiet. Nicky tried to coax them into small talk about the game, but it quickly died when neither Aaron or Andrew would respond. Usually that wouldn’t stop him from filling the silence with chatter, but he must have sensed that the tension between them went further than a lost game. Aaron’s leg bounced with nervous energy, his fingers tapping against the door handle like he was eager to get out. While Andrew was completely still, fists curled on top of his knees.

Aaron hightailed it into the house as soon as Nicky pulled into the driveway. Nicky shot Andrew a quizzical look, but Andrew let it bounce right off of him as he followed his brother inside, Nicky trailing after. The hotdogs and hamburgers were dumped on the island counter in the kitchen, but Aaron had already gone upstairs.

“I was thinking we could watch a movie while we ate,” Nicky said hopefully, lunging for the remote before Andrew could disappear upstairs. “I recorded a couple things I think you’d both like – oh, okay.” Nicky deflated as Andrew moved past him without a word. “Do you want me to bring you up some food later? I don’t want you to go hungry.”

Andrew ignored him and made his way to Aaron’s room. The lights were on, seeping out of the crack beneath the door, and loud but muffled music emanated from behind it. Andrew didn’t bother knocking as he forced his way in, causing Aaron to jump from where he sat slouched at the end of his bed. He went to turn up the stereo, but Andrew knocked his hand away and jerked the dial down.

Aaron’s shoulders bunched up as Andrew pinned him with a blank stare. He wondered if Aaron could feel the anger rolling off him in waves, or if he would deflect that like he deflected everything else.

Eventually Aaron broke.

“I don’t know why you care about that stupid deal so much, Andrew. It’s not like it really means anything. I mean, seriously, did you honestly think that I wouldn’t date anyone for all of high school? You’re insane if you thought that. It’s not a big deal. You would get a girlfriend too if you didn’t have such a stick up your ass all the time – ”

“Stop,” Andrew said and Aaron’s mouth snapped closed as his nervous tirade came to end. Andrew wanted so badly to ignore it, but Aaron’s words felt like a knife twisting in his stomach.

Aaron swallowed. “Unless,” he said, and Andrew detected a hint of venom in his voice, “unless you’re going out with Josten. You think I haven’t noticed you sneaking off with him all the time? You’re breaking the deal just as much as me and you’re a hypocrite – ”

“ _Stop_.” It was more snarl than word, but Aaron’s face only tightened. He opened his mouth but Andrew cut him off with a jerk of his hand. “I am not the one that needs to be supervised so I don’t get doped up.”

Aaron looked like he’d been slapped.

“I don’t do that anymore and Katelyn isn’t taking anything,” he seethed. “She doesn’t even drink. She doesn’t - Is that all you care about?” 

When Andrew didn’t reply, Aaron laughed bitterly. “You’re so full of shit. Of course it is. All you did was kill mom and lock me in the bathroom for a week. You didn’t do _shit_ except ruin my life.”

“She was not my mother,” Andrew said. His voice remained even, his face as calm as the surface of a lake despite the anger boiling beneath his skin. “The bitch got exactly what she deserved.”

Aaron punched him. 

It wasn’t hard but Andrew’s hand flew to his jaw as soon as he registered the pain. Aaron looked just as shocked as Andrew felt; his eyes bulged, mouth falling open in surprise as the blood drained from his face. He was shaking with anger and adrenaline, but he curled in on himself once he realized what he’d done. They stared at one another, Andrew’s hand pressed to his cheek and Aaron’s mouth hanging open, nothing but the heavy rock music still playing from Aaron’s radio interrupting the silence that rang between them.

There was a hesitant knock on the door. Nicky poked his head in, holding a plate with two hamburgers on it that he offered up to them. No one took it.

“Everything okay in here?” he asked. 

Aaron stayed rooted to the spot beside his bed, but Andrew shoved past Nicky and headed to his own room. Nicky called after him but Andrew slammed his door shut hard enough to shake the frame and locked it. He paced his room, filled with too much restless energy, and kicked the wastebasket and sent its contents across the floor. Someone had turned the music off, and Andrew could hear Nicky and Aaron’s quiet voices down the hall.

Andrew couldn’t stop seeing the look of anger on Aaron’s face right before he threw that punch. The twisting of his features, the hatred. He hadn’t even hesitated. 

Aaron had never hit him before, never. Not even during their more vicious fights. Andrew had been hit plenty of times before, and for plenty of reasons, but never by his brother. He almost couldn’t believe it happened, and if it weren’t for the dull throbbing ache that lingered in his jaw, he might not have.

A moment later, there was a knock on the door. “Andrew?” Nicky’s muffled voice called through the wood. “Andrew, are you okay?”

Andrew ignored him. He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled his feet to his chest, not bothering to take his shoes off first. He didn’t care if he got mud on his white sheets, he didn’t care if they were ruined forever. He didn’t care.

Another quiet knock. “Andrew?”

He did not respond.

Nicky left after a couple minutes of hovering outside Andrew’s door heralded no response. Andrew sat huddled on his bed for a moment before he crossed the room and swiped all the things off his desk with his arm. Pencils and paper cranes scattered across the ground as Andrew rummaged through his backpack for a piece of paper. He found his math worksheet, slightly crumpled from being at the bottom of his backpack for three days, and smoothed it with his hand.

He pressed trembling fingers to the creases of the paper until his hands didn’t shake anymore, until the paper bird came to life in his hands. He stared at the crane for a moment, wings swaying from the air coming from the fan above him, and snipped off the bird’s paper neck with the scissors he picked up from the floor next to his feet. Then he cut off its wings and its tail. He cut it up until there was nothing left except jagged strips of paper strewn across his desk, and then he pushed those onto the floor too.

Andrew’s phone chimed in his pocket, warning him that the battery was low. He fished it out once he knew he wouldn’t throw it across the room and found that there was a message from Neil. 

Neil: _Goodnight :-)_

It had been sent over half an hour ago, but Andrew flicked his phone open and scrolled through his contacts until he found Neil’s name. He pressed call. It rang for so long that Andrew thought it would go to voicemail, but then the call connected.

“’llo?” Neil’s voice on the line was tinny and groggy, he must have been sleeping when Andrew called. There was the faint sound of rustling and a distinct yawn. “Andrew?”

“Go back to sleep,” Andrew said, as if he hadn't been the one to call. As cracked from sleep as it was, Neil’s voice was a balm for the events that transpired the past hour, but he sounded on the verge of passing out.

“No, wait.” Neil yawned again. More rustling. “What’s up?”

Andrew stayed quiet. Now that he had Neil on the line, he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t particularly feel like reliving the bitter details of his fight with Aaron, and he didn’t know how to explain the hollow coldness in his chest from being punched. That left small talk, and he hated small talk, so Andrew let silence wash over them. The neighborhood was quiet at this time of night, and Andrew could see the stars twinkling in the sky from his perch on the windowsill.

Over the phone, Andrew heard the tell-tale sounds of Neil fidgeting. 

“I heard about the game tonight,” Neil said and Andrew didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. Neil was obsessed with Exy and never passed up the opportunity to talk about it. “I wish I could’ve been there but Uncle Stuart wouldn’t let me go until I finished my history essay.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Andrew replied. “We lost by four points.”

“Ouch,” Neil said. His tone turned teasing. “You really let that many goals past you? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Andrew did roll his eyes then. “I don’t care about Exy,” he reminded Neil. “But I didn’t play tonight. I was still benched from my suspension.”

“But that was weeks ago,” Neil complained. Andrew could hear the frown in his voice. “They threw the season away by not letting you play.”

“Whatever, Junkie.” Andrew leaned against the window frame, pulling one of his feet up to keep him balanced. There was a ledge right outside his window that blocked his direct view of the drop below, but Andrew’s stomach still clenched from the thought of being so high off the ground.

“It’s Fitzgerald’s fault,” Neil slurred. Andrew could tell he was falling back asleep by the way his words bled together. “She doesn’t guard her left side. Always leaves the goalie to do the work.”

“I’ll be sure to give her your feedback,” Andrew deadpanned.

“You never score enough goals in the first-half,” Neil murmured. “It’s because Bennett is a glory-hound.”

“Isn’t that all strikers?”

Neil ignored the dig. “And…” he trailed off, the sentence ending in an unintelligible mumble.

Andrew listened to his soft snores for a couple minutes, watching the empty street below him. A nighthawk swooped low in the street, the white tip of its wings catching the light from the lamp for a split-second before disappearing back into the night sky.

“Goodnight, Neil,” Andrew whispered and ended the call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!! <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! this is one of my favorite chapters i've written for this fic and i'm really excited to be posting it!! i hope y'all enjoy, and i wanna thank you all so much for the support i've received for this fic. it really means a lot <3

Neil was making his fourth lap around the track when Andrew left his spot on the bleachers and leaned against the chain-link fence that enclosed the track and field. He hooked his fingers through the links and watched Neil run. They technically weren’t allowed to be on school grounds after hours, but it only took a couple seconds for either one of them to pick the locks, and Neil blended right in with the track team anyway. When he saw Andrew waiting, Neil circled around to him.

It was too cold for him to wear the tiny shorts he usually had on when he ran, so instead he wore a pair of ratty sweats that should be burned, in Andrew’s opinion. But Neil always ignored his complaints when Andrew brought up his concerns, stating that they were comfortable, he’s had them forever, and why should he get a new pair when these are fully functional? Whatever. Andrew thought they should be illegal.

“Hey,” Neil said, accepting the water bottle Andrew handed over to him. He twisted it in his hands as he caught his breath, face flushed from exertion. “About ready to go?”

Andrew nodded and followed Neil to the locker room so he could shower and change. He stayed outside, huddled against the door propped open with a rock and using the wall as shelter from the cold wind. Intermittently, Andrew stuck his head out to check for any faculty that would bust them for being on school grounds without permission. No one came by and Neil came out a few minutes later, cheeks rosy from the cold and hair dripping water on a clean shirt. 

Andrew flicked a wet curl that had fallen into Neil’s face. It flopped against his forehead, water droplets scattering. “You’re going to get pneumonia,” he said.

“I don’t get sick,” Neil insisted, swinging his duffel bag onto his shoulder. The new weight unbalanced his backpack, and it began to slip off his shoulder.

Andrew rolled his eyes and took the backpack before it fell. He slung it over his arm with his own bag. “Don’t come crying to me when you’re drowning in tissues.”

Neil smiled. “Bring me soup?” 

Andrew scowled as his traitorous stomach flipped at the sight of Neil’s rare grin.

Neil’s uncle couldn’t pick him up today, so they walked to Andrew’s house together. Neil kept having to push his hair out of his face, and Andrew kept having to pretend that he wasn’t watching. 

He felt the first droplets hit his face when they were about halfway to his house. He looked up, but the sky was clear except for a few thin clouds that didn’t seem big enough to carry rain. The sharp smell of ozone was pungent in Andrew’s nose though, and a few more drops landed on his cheeks and ran down his chin.

“The devil’s kissing his wife,” Neil said, head tipped back as he observed the stretch of pale blue. A bead of water slid down his temple. Andrew didn’t know if it was from the budding rain, or his shower. “Or beating her, depending on where you live.”

“What?” Andrew asked.

Neil pointed up. “When it rains while the sun is still out. That’s what it’s called.”

“A sunshower,” Andrew clarified.

Neil gave him a look. “I forget you’re from California,” he said and Andrew flicked him in the cheek, averting his eyes when he grinned again. He’s been smiling more often lately, and Andrew wondered what he did to earn this bad karma.

The sun didn’t stay shining for very long. They were almost to Andrew’s house when the clouds darkened and split open like a walnut, sheets of rain beginning to fall down on them. Andrew tugged on the strap of Neil’s duffel and pulled his backpack over his head to shield himself from the rain, but it was futile and they were both soaked through in a matter of seconds. 

“Come on,” Neil shouted over the sudden roar, and they ran the rest of the way to Andrew’s house, bags over their heads and feet slapping the rain-slicked pavement. 

Once they were under the porch awning and shielded from the worst of the rain, Andrew rubbed the life back into his numb fingers. “Come inside while it’s raining,” he said to Neil. “Your uncle can pick you up later.”

Neil, waterlogged and breathless, didn’t protest as he followed Andrew inside. They were met with a blast of warm air accompanied by the smell of garlic and tomato sauce. Music floated out of the kitchen, soft words staticky over the sound of grease popping in a frying pan. Andrew ushered a dripping Neil to the stairs. They almost made it unnoticed. 

“Hey Andrew!” Nicky called from the kitchen, voice loud over the music. He had on his pink apron and was jabbing at something with his spatula when he turned around. “It’s really coming down hard, huh? I hope you don’t mind, but I borrowed your car to get stuff for – oh! Hello.”

Neil looked like a deer caught in headlights when Nicky spotted him. He gave an awkward little wave and shuffled behind Andrew as Nicky bounced over with a huge grin on his face. Andrew saw him flinch backward but Nicky grabbed his sopping wet hand to shake without skipping a beat.

“Hi! Neil, right? Andrew’s told me so much about you,” he said and Andrew kind of wished the ground would open up and eat him. “I’m Andrew’s cousin. His guardian, really. Nicky.”

“Hi,” Neil said, chin pressed to his chest. He was starting to retreat in on himself, shoulders creeping toward his ears in an attempt to fold himself into a tiny enough space to disappear in. Realizing Nicky wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, Andrew jabbed a hard finger into his ribs to make him back off and Neil shot him a grateful look.

“Ow,” Nicky grumbled as he rubbed the spot Andrew had poked. 

“We’ll be upstairs,” Andrew said, and grabbed Neil’s duffel strap to pull him along.

“I could use help with dinner,” Nicky called after them, his exclamation abruptly cut off with the door slamming shut.

“Your cousin seems nice,” Neil offered, setting his duffel down by the door and taking off his shoes. Neil tipped it upside down and a stream of water flowed out onto the carpet below. 

Andrew gave a one-shoulder shrug. “He’s decent enough, but sometimes he forgets boundaries.”

Neil didn’t disagree. His eyes wandered around Andrew’s room, over the organized clutter. His eyes lingered on a stack of books shoved on top of Andrew’s dresser, head inclining as he read the spines. They tripped over the origami projects next to it, cranes in various states of creation, a few crumpled paper frogs that Nicky had mistakenly vacuumed, and a jar full of stars. His mouth quirked when he spotted the fortune teller he made Andrew, half-hidden behind a lamp with a missing shade. 

Andrew watched from the corner of his eye as Neil picked one up of the paper cranes and inspected it, scarred hands cradling the fragile wings like he had that very first time they talked. 

“These are your paper cranes?” he asked and Andrew hummed as he nudged past him and dug through his drawers for some clothes. Neil turned it over in his hands and then set it down again. “Show me?”

Instead of responding, Andrew shoved a pair of sweats and a fresh hoodie at him. He grabbed his own and threw them on the bed. When he turned around he found Neil staring at him, bewildered.

“What are these for?” he asked.

“Generally, clothes are meant to be worn,” Andrew said. “There’s a bathroom down the hall if you want to get changed out of your wet clothes.”

“That’s okay,” Neil said and turned around. He peeled off his shirt and let it drop to the floor with a wet slap. Surprised, Andrew faced the other way before Neil could undress further. He stood still for a long time, eyes boring into the white plaster of the wall before he discarded his own clothes and exchanged them for the dry ones. 

Andrew tucked his fingers into his sleeves and pressed them to his cheeks. The fabric was soft and warm against his clammy skin and he shivered as he rubbed warmth back into it. He _hated_ the cold. 

“You can turn around,” Neil said, so Andrew did.

Despite being a few inches taller, Neil was drowning in Andrew’s hoodie. It was loose and baggy on his wiry frame and the sleeves swallowed his hands. The collar had slipped over Neil’s shoulder enough to show the stark line of his collar bone and Andrew allowed his gaze to linger there for a moment before he saw the edge of a white pock-marked scar tucked over his chest and tore his eyes away. Neil adjusted it so he was fully covered and tightened the strings so it wouldn’t slip again.

Andrew grabbed his and Neil’s clothes, still soaking wet, and threw them in the dryer. Then he grabbed a chair from the kitchen and, while dodging Nicky’s questions, hauled it upstairs for Neil to sit on. Neil was still hovering by the door when Andrew returned, shuffling from foot to foot in Andrew’s clothes. The sweatpants at least seemed to fit him a bit better, but his bony ankles were exposed, his feet bare.

Andrew placed the chair next to his own by the desk. Then he pulled out his drawer to show the origami paper he had snagged from Bee’s office during his last session. “Grab a paper and sit,” he instructed.

Neil shot him a cheeky look at his commanding tone and ran a finger over the fancy paper. He deliberated carefully, then selected a cream-colored sheet with a subtle fleur-de-lis pattern on it. Andrew thought Neil’s choice was boring but shrugged and put away the rest after choosing a glossy charcoal gray paper with crimson stripes of various widths for himself.

Once Neil was seated, Andrew folded his paper into a square and licked the creases to make it easier to rip. Neil wrinkled his nose at him. “Gross,” he said. “You have scissors _right there_.”

Andrew ignored the comment and folded the paper diagonally, checking to make sure the creases were crisp and the edges were straight. He’d made so many paper cranes it was like second nature to him, and Neil watched with rapt attention, his eyes locked on Andrew’s nimble fingers as he expertly folded the last wing and held the bird up for Neil’s inspection. 

Neil raised his eyebrows, impressed. “My turn,” he said and Andrew nodded at him to continue. He used the scissors to cut the paper into a square but his face went blank after the first few folds and he looked to Andrew for help.

Nudging his hands away, Andrew demonstrated the correct folds to make, trying hard not to think about how close they were, or how their fingers had brushed and left a lingering buzz underneath Andrew’s skin, or how Neil was gazing at Andrew’s face instead of the half-constructed origami bird in front of him.

“Then you make the wings,” Andrew said, keeping his eyes steadfastly on the paper as he creased the paper with the blunt edge of his fingernail.

“I’ll have to practice that,” Neil said once Andrew was finished. He took the bird in his hands and lowered it to his lap. He stared at it for a long moment before he turned toward Andrew again. “Thanks,” he said. He didn’t move away.

Andrew could no longer ignore how close they were, or how blue Neil’s eyes were. He couldn’t help but notice that his eyelashes were a shade darker than his hair, and how the right corner of his mouth pulled upwards more than the left when he smiled. Rain pounded on the window behind him, but Andrew was sure he could hear Neil’s stuttering heartbeat. Or maybe it was his own, and Neil was the one that could hear it.

It felt a little like standing on a rooftop too high up off the ground, Andrew’s heart pounding in his chest as he approached the edge and stared down the drop below. Neil shifted closer unconsciously; his hands still curled around the crane in his lap. Andrew’s heart was beating fast and he had to resist the urge to press his fingers to his fluttering pulse and give away how affected he was. 

He was standing on the edge of a cliff and he was going to fall, he was going to plummet to the earth and maybe he would hit the ground, too. 

“Can I kiss you?” Neil asked softly. Andrew was falling, but for the first time he did not feel afraid. 

Neil’s hair was still damp when Andrew threaded his fingers through it, but Neil was warm and pliant and he came to Andrew willingly, practically leaning into his hand. This close, Neil smelled of lemon soap and laundry detergent.

“Keep your hands where they are,” murmured Andrew, and at Neil’s nod, he captured Neil’s lips in a kiss.

Breath hitching at the first brush of their lips, Neil’s eyelashes fluttered over his cheeks. It was a little awkward at first, noses bumping and teeth clacking. Neil almost bonked his head against Andrew’s while chasing after his lips, but Andrew steadied him with a hand on his jaw and angled him so that their mouths were better aligned. The new angle made Neil jolt in surprise and Andrew was afraid that he would forget his request not to be touched. But his worries were fleeting and Neil kept his hands in his lap and melted into the kiss, returning each one that Andrew gave.

Andrew felt like he had swallowed his heart, that a great beast had taken it, or that he had given it over to be devoured. His pulse set a jack-rabbit beat, and his thumb pressed against Neil’s neck revealed he was in a similar state. Andrew wasn’t sure how long they kissed, only that he never wanted it to stop.

Unfortunately, Andrew was a flesh and blood creature and he still needed to breathe. He pulled away and Neil made a quiet, discontented noise that almost had Andrew going to his knees. His eyes remained closed longer than necessary, and he opened them slowly, eyelashes brushing scarred and freckled cheeks. 

Andrew was unmoored, adrift, a sailboat on tumultuous seas. The kiss was just a kiss but Andrew felt it in every inch of his body, not just in the buzz of his lips or the pulsing warmth where his hand was cupped around Neil’s slender neck. He fixed Neil’s mussed hair, running his fingers over it so it didn’t obviously stick up at one side and Neil murmured a word; a swear, a thanks, Andrew’s name. It was too quiet for him to hear.

“Oh,” Neil said, opening his hands to reveal the mangled cream paper that had once been a bird. “I forgot I was holding it.”

The door opened a crack before Andrew could respond. Aaron peered in at them, expression turning sour when he saw Neil. “What are _you_ doing here?” he said. 

“School project,” Neil said. Andrew’s eyes darted from Aaron’s face to Neil’s, but the softness Andrew had been privy to just moments prior was replaced with a blank slate. Aaron just looked ruffled and slightly pissed off, but that was usually how he looked so Andrew didn’t pay him much mind.

Aaron narrowed his eyes. He glanced at the papers on the desk and the paper in Neil’s hands and scoffed. “School project, huh,” he muttered. His focus returned to Andrew. “Whatever. Nicky said to come get you.”

Andrew and Neil exchanged a look and Aaron disappeared downstairs. The rain continued to wage a war against the glass window panes. They went downstairs.

Bypassing Aaron in the living room, Andrew ignored Nicky’s request for help and rifled through the freezer for his quart of triple chocolate chunk ice cream. He hid it behind his back and sat at the dining room table. Neil took the chair nearest to him and ducked his head, but Nicky was as determined as he was impatient, and it seemed that Andrew had hogged Neil for long enough.

“So, Neil,” he said in an innocent voice that fooled no one. “Andrew tells me that you’re new to Columbia?”

Andrew had told him no such thing and he glared at Nicky but Nicky smiled innocently and wiped his hands on a towel. Neil grimaced while he answered. “I got here a few months ago.”

“Oh, what brought you to South Carolina?” Nicky pressed. Andrew’s glare sharpened but Neil took it in stride.

“Business mostly. My uncle’s an accountant and a big law firm offered him a job over here so he packed us up and moved,” he said smoothly and quickly diverted Nicky’s attention back to the pan that contained the beginning of a lasagna. “Do you need help with that?”

Successfully distracted, Nicky beamed and motioned Neil over and explained how he liked to stack lasagna in exact detail. Neil shot Andrew a smug look and Andrew hid a smirk behind his spoon.

Nicky shuffled around the kitchen, fussing with the ingredients and fetching a bowl for the salad. “I’m sorry, Neil. If I knew you were coming I would have made something el– _Andrew_ ,” came his long-suffering complaint when Andrew failed to hide his ice cream under the table in time. “No ice cream before dinner, you’ll spoil your appetite!”

Andrew huffed and returned his ice cream to the freezer. He had a feeling that Neil would be able to handle himself, but he shot him a look that roughly translated to _come get me if you need help_ as he made his way to the downstairs bathroom to wash the chocolate stickiness from his hands. 

In the living room, Aaron’s eyes were trained on the screen as he shot the zombies in his game and Andrew paid him no mind, but Aaron darted a look in his direction when he passed. 

It took Andrew all of three milliseconds to notice that Aaron had paused the game. He washed his hands slowly, getting under his nails and around his wrists. Water soaked into the hem of his sleeves. He turned the water off and took his time drying his hands. He spent a few more minutes rummaging under the cabinet for lotion. No one liked dry hands. Only after then did he acknowledge Aaron waiting for him.

Neither Andrew nor Aaron had brought up the fight from last week, and they certainly did not acknowledge the punch. Occasionally, Andrew saw Aaron shoot him a guilty glance from the corner of his eye, but he never returned the look or said a word to him about it. The closest Aaron had come to an apology or peace offering was when Andrew found a few of his favorite candy bars stacked outside his bedroom door. (He made three paper cranes and destroyed two before he ate any of it.)

There was no trace of that guilt or need for assurance now.

Aaron scowled at him, arms crossed over his chest. It was an imitation of Andrew’s stance when he confronted Aaron about his cheerleader girlfriend, and it irritated Andrew that Aaron was doing it to him. He was not used to seeing his brother stand his ground.

“What,” Andrew said, first to break the silence.

“You were just getting on my ass about dating and then you go and bring _him_ here,” Aaron spat. “You’re breaking the deal just as much as I am.”

“We’re not dating,” Andrew said. 

Aaron scoffed. “I’m not a complete idiot, Andrew.”

Andrew disagreed, but he didn’t voice this thought. Instead he decided to let Aaron stew in his anger and shoved past him before he could say another word. Aaron made a loud frustrated noise that sounded like a mix between an aborted scream and a snarl, but he didn’t try to stop Andrew again. 

The lasagna was in the oven and Nicky was chattering happily to Neil, who sat on the kitchen counter across from him when Andrew walked in. There was a slight smile on his lips and a mischievous glint in his eye as he talked to Nicky, but it slid off his face when he noticed Andrew’s haughty composure. 

He tipped his head to the side in question and Andrew blinked evenly at him in response, smoothing his expression from irritation to perfect neutrality. Neil didn’t need to worry about the argument he had with Aaron.

Neil conveyed his understanding with a nod and hopped off the counter. “Nicky says it’ll be an hour before the lasagna’s done. Wanna watch a movie?”

“A movie would be great!” Nicky enthused before Andrew could respond, tearing off his apron and clearly missing that Neil had meant for it to be just him and Andrew. But Neil only shrugged and they all headed to the living room and loaded up Netflix on the TV.

Aaron seemed less than enthused to be watching a movie with all of them, and for once, Andrew begrudgingly agreed. He wanted nothing more than to ferret Neil away to his room and pretend to watch the movie while he distracted him with kisses. He was ready to sulk through the entire movie, but Neil sat next to him on the couch, their legs just barely pressed together, the heat radiating between them electrifying. That was a welcome distraction.

“Okay,” Nicky said, grabbing the remote from the coffee table. “Neil and I get to pick the movie since we made dinner.”

After several minutes of deliberation, they ended up watching Mean Girls since Neil seemed impartial to all the movies Nicky suggested. Nicky tried asking what movies Neil liked to watch, but Neil only mumbled something about not watching a lot of TV and seized the remote to choose a movie at random.

“It’s a classic,” Nicky insisted with utter delight at Neil’s choice, but Andrew rolled his eyes. He saw Aaron do the same, which only made Andrew want to roll his eyes harder. He didn’t want to have anything in common with his brother.

Neil seemed vaguely into the movie, though Andrew suspected his focus was to ward Nicky off from asking any more questions. A few minutes into the first scene of the movie, Andrew reached over and linked his pinky with Neil’s, out of sight of the other’s. Neil kept his gaze on the television but his mouth quirked upwards into the faintest of smiles, something for Andrew’s eyes only.

An hour later, they all gathered around the dining table and they witnessed first hand Neil’s skill for directing the conversation away from himself. 

For every question Nicky asked, he somehow evaded it and turned it around so Nicky was talking about himself. As Nicky liked to talk about himself and even more about Erik, it was highly effective. Nicky rambled a mile a minute about his fiancé in Germany, and while at first Neil looked alarmed at the influx of information, he listened diligently and nodded at the appropriate intervals, adding a word or two when necessary. Nicky was very pleased.

It was at odds with Aaron’s silent demeanor throughout the whole of dinner. 

Aaron kept his head ducked toward his phone and answered texts between bites of lasagna, but occasionally his eyes would stray towards Neil and his jaw would clench tight and he’d glare down at his plate. Both Andrew and Neil ignored him, but Nicky tried to coax him into the conversation by asking questions about his classes or whoever he was texting. Aaron would brush him off and grumble something rude, until eventually he dumped his plate in the sink and stomped upstairs. His departure was punctuated by the slam of his door.

Nicky cleared his throat. “I’m sorry Neil,” he said. He looked pained. “Aaron’s been having a hard time lately. We don’t really get a lot of guests and sometimes he can be a bit of a grump.”

“It’s fine,” Neil said, once again averting his eyes and folding in on himself.

“We can finish the movie,” Nicky offered as he collected the rest of the plates. “There’s only like, forty minutes left I think.”

“That’s okay,” Neil said. “My uncle just texted me that he’s around the corner.”

“Alright then,” Nicky said. “It was really great meeting you, and hopefully we didn’t scare you off too bad.”

“Uh,” Neil said, eyes darting to the front door, calculating his escape. “You too.”

Andrew grabbed both their plates and obnoxiously scraped the leftover food into the garbage, making Nicky cringe when the fork scratched against the fake porcelain.

“Andrew,” Nicky chided. “Jesus I hate that noise.”

Neil was waiting by the front door when Andrew left Nicky to clean the rest of the dishes. He grabbed Neil’s clothes from upstairs and walked Neil out. The torrential downpour had turned into a light drizzle, and the raindrops dappled the sidewalk. The light from the streetlamp reflected blearily off of the dark asphalt of the road, shattering the world behind Neil and throwing him in sharp relief. The world was a messy array of watery colors.

“What about your clothes?” Neil asked as Andrew handed him the bundle of fabric, still warm from the dryer.

Andrew shrugged. “I’m not expecting you to strip, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, taking satisfaction in the red patches that bloomed across Neil’s face. “Just give them back later.”

“Thanks,” Neil said as a sleek sports car pulled up to the drive, headlights throwing long shadows across the rain-soaked concrete. He made it three steps before hesitating and turning around again.

“No offense to your cousin,” he said, “but Mean Girls really isn’t my thing.”

Andrew had thought as much. “What is your thing?” he asked.

Neil let loose another sharp smile. He seemed to have an arsenal of those. “The classics,” he said. “Monster movies.”

“Why?” Andrew asked. He felt a stirring of curiosity, surprise. He never would have guessed. 

Neil’s smile softened and Andrew was mesmerized at how something honed to cut could turn plush as a pillow. “I watched them a lot when Uncle Stuart first took me in. They were some of my first good memories.” he said. “Black and white movies were all he had. My only options were those or old western movies. And I can’t say I’m the gunslinging type.”

“This town _is_ big enough for the both of us,” Andrew agreed and Neil huffed a quiet laugh. “Which one’s your favorite?”

Neil thought about it. “Frankenstein,” he said at last. He motioned to his face, wry. “See the resemblance?”

Neil was a lot prettier than Frankenstein, but Andrew saved himself the embarrassment and kept that particular thought to himself. 

Neil glanced behind him, toward the idling car with his uncle inside. “See you at school?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Andrew said and pulled Neil behind the pillar where Neil’s uncle wouldn’t see them. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Neil replied, and Andrew reeled him in for a quick kiss.

“Bye,” Neil said, lips brushing Andrew’s.

“Bye,” Andrew replied and nudged him toward the steps. Neil brushed his fingers over the back of his hand resting on his chest, one final touch before he turned and hopped down the drive. Andrew watched as he slid in the passenger seat of the car and didn’t look away until it turned the corner and was out of sight. 

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting to see a message from Neil, but it was from a number that Andrew did not have saved to his phone, but still had memorized.

Aaron: _If I can’t see Katelyn, then you can’t see Neil_  
 _And no more bringing him around the house_

Andrew left him on read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: brief mention of drugs, murder, and past child abuse (all said in passing, and very minor)
> 
> hope you enjoy the chapter (and the andreil sweetness!!)

Andrew lay on his back, arm tossed over his eyes to block out the fluorescent ceiling lights blinding him. Normally, Betsy kept the overhead lights off in favor of the dim, soothing lamps sitting on either side of her armchair, but the slowly changing colors irritated Andrew, and he preferred the fluorescents that flooded everything out, even when the glare was too bright when he flopped down on the couch. 

“Bee,” he said, “we have a problem.”

From where Betsy sat primly in her armchair across from him, she tapped her pen twice on her notebook perched atop her knee. “I take it’s a five-marshmallow day,” she said and got to making the cocoa when Andrew groaned his answer. 

“So,” Betsy said several minutes later as she set Andrew’s steaming mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of him, “what’s the issue?”

Andrew pushed himself up with his elbow so he sat cross-legged on the couch. “A couple sessions ago, I told you about this boy,” Andrew said and Bee nodded. “I kissed him, and Aaron’s pissed at me.”

Betsy’s eyebrow twitched. “Aaron is upset because you kissed this boy?”

“No,” Andrew said. He resisted the urge to rub away the irritable line forming between his eyebrows. “But he would not be pleased if he knew. He thinks me and Neil are going out. Like, _dating._ ”

Bee shifted in her seat, her knitted brown shawl sweeping over the embroidered daisies on the cushion, obscuring them from view. It was the only give away that she had latched onto something and was prepared to pursue it. 

“But you’re not dating Neil,” she guessed.

“We’re not boyfriends,” Andrew said. “We’re just friends. Who sometimes kiss. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“Do you want it to mean something?” 

Andrew blinked at her. He remembered the kiss, his racing heartbeat that matched the drum of the rain outside. He thought of Neil, his lips parted and eyes closed as if in a dream. Wanting to kiss him again and again and again. 

“I like Neil,” he said at length. His fingers tapped on the edge of his knee and Andrew forced them flat. He thought about how kissing Neil felt so much like falling, his stomach bottoming out as he plunged through the air. “But it’s still kind of new.”

Bee hummed and took a careful sip of her cocoa. “You don’t have to rush,” she assured him. “There’s no concrete timeline for this sort of thing, and everyone goes at their own pace. Whether or not you begin dating Neil in the future or continue experimenting with him is not a decision you need to make now, as long as you both are on the same page.”

Some time between their second and third kiss, Andrew had asked Neil about his sexuality. He never seemed to look at anyone regardless of their gender, and he didn’t care or notice that people looked at him. Neil had replied that he wasn’t ever attracted to anybody before Andrew. He’d kissed people in the past, but had felt nothing. He never clarified what had changed, why Andrew was so different, but Andrew took him at his word when Neil said he was attracted to him.

Neil had no reason to lie, and some things you just couldn’t fake. 

Andrew supposed he could pretend that the kiss was nothing, that he felt nothing. But Andrew had no reason to lie, and some things you just couldn’t fake. 

“I think I want to,” he said, “try.”

He felt vulnerable, flesh rendered from bone, and he hated it. Even with someone as safe as Bee, he disliked feeling like he was being opened up and looked at, having truths that he could barely admit to himself dissected. But his thoughts were so twisted up, he needed guidance. He said, “I think Neil does too. It didn’t really feel like just a kissing-your-friends kind of thing.”

Bee nodded at him, a small nudge for him to elaborate. 

“We tell each other things,” Andrew said. “I trust him. I know that he won’t use the secrets I tell him against me, no matter what they are.” 

He knew in return that Neil must have trusted him too. While he got along fine with Nicky, Neil still didn’t like opening up to him about anything. He’d lied to him about the reason they moved as easily as one would down a shot of water, and he didn’t like when personal questions were directed at him. As he fended off Nicky's onslaught of questions, Andrew could see the drawbridge rising every second they were at dinner. 

But he told Andrew his favorite movie, he offered details about his life and his family, no matter how bloody they were. Andrew knew the real reason Neil’s uncle had moved them, and he accepted that information and digested it without hesitation, as Neil had done for him. Neil was a conundrum inside of a question Andrew was aching to ask and he was giving Andrew the keys to answer them. And hadn’t Andrew given him keys of his own?

Neil knew about his mother, about what he had done to her. He shared with him the worst of his time in foster care and he even broached the complex mess of a topic that was his brother. Not once had Neil flinched. He never looked angry or scared or disgusted by Andrew. He just looked; open and accepting, and saw Andrew.

“What are you thinking about?” Betsy asked.

Andrew took a quick, steadying breath, drawing himself from his thoughts. The simple fact about Neil Josten was that he was cut from the same cloth Andrew was. No one, not even Aaron, understood what it was like to be Andrew Minyard. Except, maybe, Neil. 

“He doesn’t look at me like I’m something that needs to be fixed,” he said. He didn’t know any other way to explain it.

Neil was every bit as broken as Andrew was, and he saw and he understood. He didn’t look at Andrew like he wasn’t good enough, like he was something awful, like Andrew left a bad taste in his mouth that needed to be expelled. 

Andrew didn’t feel like a monster around Neil. 

“I’m glad that you have someone you can trust and rely on,” said Betsy. “But something else is holding you back, am I correct?”

Betsy’s gaze on his was keen, and Andrew remembered too late how good of a therapist she was. 

“How does Aaron fit into this?” she asked. “Does he not like the idea of you dating a boy?”

“That probably doesn’t help,” Andrew muttered. He shrugged, casting his eyes about the office for a distraction, an evasion. The pile of Betsy’s origami paper sat on the table waiting for him, but Andrew’s hands felt too heavy to be able to create anything. In a normal voice he continued, “How am I supposed to know what goes through my brother’s head?”

“Deflecting,” Betsy called him out. When Andrew said nothing, she pushed on. “I know your brother has been a point of contention for you in the past. Perhaps talking to him about Neil and how he makes you feel would help smooth things.”

“That would make it worse,” Andrew insisted.

“And why is that?”

Andrew has never told Betsy about the deal before. He convinced himself it was because the deal didn’t really matter compared to the rest of Andrew’s fractured psyche, but that would be a lie. Bee knew as well as anyone that Andrew’s promises meant everything. He embodied them. He was, if not anything else, the promises he made. 

“We have a deal,” he said quietly, eventually. He saw Betsy’s pen stand up straight, a small jolt of her hand before she wrote something down. “I promised that I would protect him.”

“In exchange for what?”

It was supposed to be him and Aaron against the world, they were supposed to have each other’s backs. Aaron wasn’t supposed to leave the first chance he got. He wasn’t supposed to take Tilda’s side. 

“No friends, no dating,” Andrew said. “Everything would have been fine if he had kept up his end of the bargain, but he keeps dating and getting stupid girlfriends.” Risking everything Andrew had done to keep him safe. “The deal doesn’t matter to him and never has.”

“Maybe it’s not so much as Aaron breaking the terms of the deal, but perhaps him not believing in it?” Betsy said. She steepled her fingers over the pad of her notebook. “Perhaps he felt that the deal had not been fulfilled, so it did not apply.”

Andrew felt a flicker of anger at this. “I did what I said I would. I protected him. I still do. It’s not my fault he doesn’t believe me, he should have known that I always keep my promises.”

Betsy was calm. “Did you tell him this?”

Andrew clenched his jaw. “He should have known,” he said.

“Andrew,” said Betsy, “you can’t always assume people will know something if they have never been told.”

Andrew said nothing. He had been very clear about the terms of their deal before Aaron agreed to it. He should have understood, drugs pumping through his system or not.

“But,” Bee continued. “If you are both interested in dating, then perhaps you can come to a mutual agreement to end the deal? You can continue with Neil, while Aaron can date who he likes.”

“ _No._ ” Andrew cut his hand through the air. “No. We agreed until high school ended. I’m not ending it early.”

If Andrew officially let Aaron out of the deal, there was nothing keeping him from ditching him completely. If he chose Neil, he would lose Aaron. He did not want to give up one for the other. This way he could hold something over Aaron’s head, at least until graduation. He still had time. He didn’t have to lose everything yet. 

“I know you haven’t asked for my opinion, but I don’t think this deal is healthy, Andrew. For either of you,” Betsy said. “It is very likely that it will push Aaron further away.”

“Aaron broke the deal first,” Andrew said, ignoring this. “He has no right to be upset with me.”

Betsy pursed her lips in obvious disagreement and Andrew scowled. He glanced around the office one more time, but the walls were pushing in on him, the lights were too bright, and Andrew wanted to escape. 

“I think time’s up for the day,” he said and pushed off of the couch. Betsy didn’t try to stop him as he exited her office without another word, but she watched him leave with a small frown set into her face like stone.

_ _

Nicky was working a mid-shift at Sweeties and wouldn’t be able to pick him up, so he gave Andrew some cash for the bus when he dropped him off for his appointment. Andrew had grumbled that the car was _his car_ , but didn’t make too much of a fuss since Nicky needed it more than he did. Andrew just wanted to make sure he didn’t forget.

The public bus was late, but that gave Andrew plenty of time to think over what had happened in Betsy’s office today. He’d begun picking apart the threads of the conversation when the bus arrived in a stinky cloud of exhaust and hot air. He neatly separated the pros and cons of his deal with Aaron and analyzed each from every angle as the bus trundled along on the busy road and had almost gone through everything a second time when they pulled up to the stop closest to the school. 

Nicky expected Andrew to go home, but Andrew didn’t really want to go home. Instead he made his way to the field and packed everything away to the back of his mind for later when he found Neil running laps by himself on the track. 

It didn’t take long for Neil to notice Andrew waiting for him, and he trotted over to where Andrew stood beside the chain-link fence.

“You haven’t been running long,” Andrew noted. 

When Neil got farther into his exercise, he could run full pelt around the track and clock a four-minute mile, but he was hardly out of breath and his cheeks were rosy from the cold, not from exertion. He was wearing the hoodie Andrew had lent him when his clothes got soaked from the rain last week, hood pulled up to protect his ears from the chill air. Neil hadn’t given it back yet, but Andrew hadn't asked him to.

“I’ve only been out for a couple minutes. I had to stay after class to finish a test,” Neil explained, brushing his hair off of his forehead with his fingers and making the hood fall off. His hair was getting long, auburn locks falling into his face and curling softly around his ears. “You could join me, you know.”

Andrew made a face. “As tempting as running until I pass out sounds,” he said, deadpan, “I think I’ll have to skip.”

“You’re on the Exy team,” Neil complained, as if that were supposed to change his mind. When Andrew stared at him with a stony expression, Neil rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself,” he said and turned to go. But before he could get too far, Andrew reached out and snagged his sleeve.

“We could make out under the bleachers instead,” he suggested.

Neil grinned, sharp, and made a beeline for the gate leading out from the track. Andrew followed him at a leisurely pace, but he could feel a buzz threaded through his skin as he and Neil found a place under the bleachers and sat facing each other. The ground was cold and hard underneath him but Andrew didn’t care as he grabbed Neil’s face in his hands and kissed him.

They’d kissed a handful of times since the first kiss in Andrew’s bedroom, but every time felt excitingly novel. Neil was inexperienced, but he made up for it with enthusiasm. And it certainly didn’t hurt that he was a fast learner.

Andrew carded his hands through Neil’s soft hair, something he’d wanted to do since he glimpsed the wily strands peeking out from under his hood. He got a bit distracted when Neil nipped his bottom lip with his teeth and his hands stalled in Neil’s hair. He wasn’t surprised, exactly, but he couldn’t resist pushing Neil against the metal bleachers and kissing him fiercely, coaxing a pleased hum out of Neil.

Neil pulled away, breathless. “How was therapy?” he asked.

Andrew couldn’t believe Neil was asking now, of all times. “It was whatever,” he said and yanked Neil in for another heavy kiss before he could ask any more stupid questions. He didn’t want to think about any of that right now. He was content with kissing Neil and letting the feel of his soft lips against his own and Neil’s pliant body under his hands wash everything else away.

But the question bit at Andrew. He could no longer deny that what he and Neil were doing wasn’t an infraction on his deal with Aaron. It didn’t matter that Aaron broke his end first, or that this particular clause was created for the sole purpose to stop Aaron from falling in with the wrong people again, simply disguised as a rule for both of them. It had never been a problem before, because Andrew didn’t do relationships. He didn’t have friends. 

And then he met Neil. 

“You’re distracted,” Neil mumbled against Andrew’s lips. Andrew was irritated that Neil knew him well enough to sense his mind wandering away, but Neil was right. He bundled up his conflicting thoughts and threw them to the back of his mind. The only important thing right now was Neil’s lips trailing down Andrew’s jaw to his neck. The sensation of Neil pressing his mouth to the sensitive skin below Andrew’s ear was new and sent a shudder through his body.

“Fuck you,” Andrew said on reflex, hands clenching in Neil’s hair. 

Neil paused, lips hovering over the same area as he assessed what he just discovered. “You never mentioned you liked your neck to be kissed,” he said, his voice taking on an edge of teasing.

Andrew never mentioned it because he didn’t know. He had never allowed anyone to kiss his neck before, but now it was all he could think about. He could feel the flush rising to his face even as his frenzied thoughts spun madly around his head. 

“Shut up.” It wasn’t the most sophisticated response, but Andrew could hardly think at the moment. Deciding to save Neil the trouble, he made use of that mouth and shut Neil up for him.

Neil pressed closer, happy to let the conversation drift away, and Andrew trailed his hands over Neil’s shoulders, down his chest to his hips. It was freezing but Neil felt warm, so he poked his fingers underneath Neil’s hoodie to steal some of that heat. His fingers brushed bare skin and both of them jolted in surprise. Andrew hadn’t expected Neil to not have a shirt underneath and he pulled away, keeping his hands where they were. When he saw the uncomfortable expression on Neil’s face, he removed them completely. 

“Okay?” Andrew asked. He had never touched Neil under his shirt before, and Andrew needed to make sure he hadn’t crossed a boundary before Neil was ready for it.

“I have,” Neil started. His jaw worked, eyes darting around the underneath of the bleachers but never at Andrew. “I have scars. And they’re not, well.” Neil gave a harsh laugh, gesturing to his face. “They’re worse. And I’m not ready for you to see them. Or feel them.”

Neil worried his bottom lip between his teeth, still not meeting Andrew’s gaze. Andrew leaned back to give him more space, but stayed put when Neil tensed at the sudden flood of cold between them.

“We could stop,” Andrew told him but Neil shook his head.

“It’s still a yes,” he said. “Just not under the hoodie.”

“Okay,” Andrew said and curled his fingers in the front of Neil’s sweater. He scanned Neil’s face to make sure he really was okay to continue, and waited for Neil to close the gap between their lips. It was slower than their previous kisses, laced with all fire and need, and the tension that had built up in Neil’s body from the accidental touch melted away.

At that moment, there, with Neil under the bleachers, Andrew couldn’t find it in himself to care about anything else except for the distance between their mouths when they parted for air, the hitch in Neil’s chest as they kissed again and again and again, the feeling of Neil, soft and trusting underneath him as Andrew’s blood grew hot with fire. 

Andrew couldn’t give this up, even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t, he very much didn’t. 

They kissed for a bit, seconds stretching into minutes like two-sweet taffy, then Andrew reached for Neil’s hands in his lap. Neil stilled at the first brush of their fingers when Andrew carefully uncurled Neil’s fingers and raised them to his head. Andrew looked him in the eyes, summer-blue nearly swallowed by the darkness of his pupils, and guided Neil’s hands to his hair.

“Just here,” he said, holding Neil’s gaze. Neil nodded, eyes wide and lips parted. He didn’t move his hands until Andrew released him and directed him into another kiss. Neil fell into it, gently exploring what he was allowed and occasionally tugging on strands whenever Andrew deepened the kiss or opened his mouth to him. He shivered at the feeling of Neil’s blunt fingernails scratching pleasant tracks along his scalp, never too hard to hurt or leave a mark. 

They stayed intertwined until Neil’s phone chirped and Neil fell backwards, fumbling for it.

“Ah, shit,” he said, reading the message. “It’s Stuart. He wants me home.”

“Is he picking you up now?” Andrew said, a little disgruntled at the interruption. 

Neil shook his head and tapped off a response. His hair was a mess, lips swollen and red from making out, pupils still blown wide.

“I said I’d walk.” He smoothed the lines Andrew had created on his hoodie. “Come with me?”

Neil offered his hand to help Andrew up, and Andrew took it. Neil’s palm was warm where Andrew pressed his against it, hand lingering in his. They didn’t separate completely once Andrew was standing up. Instead, Andrew linked his pinky with Neil’s like he had during the movie at his house and they walked under the cloud covered sky, no sun visible and nothing to warm them except for the other. Neither one of them let go until they were on Neil’s doorstep and they had to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh, i almost forgot to post today. the past few days (the past WEEK) has been super busy and it almost slipped my mind! i'm gad i remembered tho :')
> 
> thank you for reading, and thank you for all the love and support!!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yayyy new chapter!!!
> 
> i hope everyone had a lovely week and a great start to october <3
> 
> tw for this chapter: heavy description of neil's scars, anxiety, doom and gloom thinking (but it all turns out alright), mild sexual content, second hand embarrassment

The white figures on the screen bled into the dark background, static blooming from the old film like black and white fireworks. One of the men withdrew a cross, and the other recoiled with a hiss and a dramatic flair. Neil mumbled along to the movie, his low cadence blending discordantly with the voices drifting through the speaker on Andrew’s laptop. 

He had claimed _Dracula_ wasn’t one of his favorite movies, but he’d still watched it enough to be able to repeat the dialogue quietly to himself, his voice muffled by the fabric of Andrew’s hoodie. 

They were steadily making their way through Neil’s extensive collection of horror classics, and Andrew was starting to understand Neil’s fondness for them. They weren’t Hollywood blockbusters with a budget of millions of dollars by any means, but they didn’t need to be. They were classics for a reason, and Andrew found himself watching the movies instead of zoning out like he usually did.

“The original _Dracula_ is really gay,” Neil said suddenly, head resting on Andrew’s chest as he watched the movie with rapt attention. Andrew was beginning to doubt his claim of not liking the movie. “At least the original book it was based off of was. A lot of classic horror movies are queer-coded, but nobody talks about it.”

Andrew hummed, combing through Neil’s hair with his fingers. “Have you read the book?”

“No.” Neil fidgeted with the collar of Andrew’s hoodie, hands grazing the edge of Andrew’s skin and raising goosebumps on his arms. “Have you?”

“No. But I read _Frankenstein_ for my English class last year.”

“That one’s really gay, too,” Neil said. “And Mary Shelley is the shit.”

Andrew nodded in agreement and Neil pressed his cheek against his chest with a content sigh. His hair brushed against Andrew’s throat and Andrew remembered Neil’s lips on him vividly, every detail cemented into his memory by his perfect recall. To say it was distracting would be an understatement. 

“We haven’t watched _Frankenstein_ yet,” Andrew noted. 

Somehow Neil always had the uncanny ability to tell when and why Andrew was distracted, and he picked up on his predicament now. There was a pause before he responded. 

“Saving that one for last,” he murmured and turned his head so that his lips were pressed to the side of Andrew’s neck.

Andrew stilled; his pulse quickened. Neil didn’t move anymore than that, but the feeling of his slightly chapped lips and warm breath against his neck sent shivers down his spine. He tried to repress them, but Neil still sensed it and Andrew could feel his slow smile building against his sensitive skin.

“What have you done with Neil?” Andrew asked, quoting the movie.

“Neil? I’ve never even heard the name before,” Neil finished. Heat pooled in Andrew’s stomach when his lips moved to form the words.

Neil didn’t move for a long while and Andrew almost brought his focus back to the movie, but then Neil’s lips parted and he traced a line to Andrew’s pulse point with his mouth. His tongue darted out when he found it and Andrew was pretty sure he’d stopped breathing.

“I want to kiss you,” Neil said at last, breath whispering across Andrew’s skin, making his hair stand on end. Neil trailed his hand up and brushed his thumb over Andrew’s thrumming heartbeat. “Right here.”

Andrew’s jaw tightened and his skin tingled. He’d closed his eyes – when, he wasn’t sure – and wetted his bottom lip. “What’s stopping you, Dracula?”

Interpreting his response for the permission it was, Neil smiled again and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Andrew’s neck. The kiss was sloppy but Andrew still shivered, electricity shooting down his spine, through his stomach, and to the tips of his toes. 

“Again,” he said, voice growing hoarse as his control flagged. 

Time was lost as Neil worked Andrew’s skin into what Andrew was sure would be a decent-sized bruise later on. Thank fuck it was still cold enough to wear a turtle neck. Andrew had sunk his teeth into his bottom-lip about five kisses ago, but still Neil did not let up. 

But Andrew hadn’t asked him to. 

Neil leaned back to study his work, eyes darting to inspect Andrew’s expression but Andrew steadfastly kept his eyes on the screen of his laptop. Neil was looking for a reaction, but Andrew wasn’t going to give it to him yet. Though he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what was happening in the movie if they had asked. 

When Neil moved away, Andrew missed the contact of Neil’s warm mouth against his neck. He forced himself to stay still. He wasn’t about to let Neil know how affected he was. 

But Neil was stubborn and persistent, and he never gave up without a fight. He dipped his head down by Andrew’s neck one more time, and moving the collar of his hoodie out of the way, lightly bit the junction between his neck and shoulder. 

Andrew grunted, his leg jerking in surprise at the shot of pleasure that jolted through his body. 

“Ha,” Neil said triumphantly.

“Vampire,” Andrew bit out in response and finally conceded, curling his hand around Neil’s head to keep him in place as he relaxed into the pillows.

Neil bit and sucked at Andrew’s bared throat until Andrew couldn’t take it anymore. He slammed the laptop closed and shoved it off of his lap, uncaring as it toppled to the floor with a few errant pillows. Neil’s smug expression melted into one of surprise and exhilaration as Andrew flipped their positions and pulled Neil’s legs to either side of his hips.

Neil’s eyes were alight with excitement and he nodded his _yes_ to Andrew and stretched up for a kiss. Andrew took a hold of his jaw and kissed him with all the fiery need and desperation that had exploded in his chest as soon as Neil pressed his lips to his neck. Neil’s content hum turned into a low moan when Andrew pulled his head back with a grip on his hair and gave him a fierce kiss that shot bolts of lightning straight to his gut. 

Andrew let his hands wander. He pushed Neil’s jacket from his shoulders and Neil kicked it somewhere to the floor. He felt the lines of Neil’s back, the lithe muscles of a runner’s body. His hands grazed the top of Neil’s jeans and then back to his shoulders. He began to push Neil down when Neil pulled back.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, voice hardly more than a breathy gasp. Andrew paused, still kneeling between Neil’s legs. Andrew didn’t know what he was expecting Neil to do, but a thrill went through him when Neil reached for the hems of his shirt and pulled it over his head with one quick motion. 

Andrew kept his eyes on Neil’s face, forced his expression into neutrality, but Neil’s flushed cheeks and the arousal in his blown eyes only made things harder. He swallowed and kept his hands on Neil’s hips. 

“You can look,” Neil said, not breaking Andrew’s gaze. “They’re not pretty, but you’re allowed to look.”

Andrew pressed his hand against Neil’s stomach and pushed him down against the pillow, slower and gentler than he had intended before. Neil fell in a slow decline, completely trusting as Andrew drank in the sight of him until he felt tipsy off of all his bare skin. 

It wasn’t just that Neil had taken his shirt off, or that Andrew could see the faint muscles he had only felt before. Neil’s body was a landscape of survival; mountains and valleys carved into his skin, left-overs of so many battles fought and won. When Andrew had first met Neil, he’d thought he was a rabbit, a runner. But the deep slashes in his gut and the puckered scar on his shoulder painted a different story.

Andrew’s need to have his hands and lips on Neil had taken a backburner to the sensation of Neil’s hiccupping stomach under his palm as he laid his hand flat against the numerous scars he found there. Neil was silent, eyes fixed on Andrew’s face as Andrew trailed his hand up from his naval, thumb brushing his belly-button, to the gnarled scar nestled between his shoulder and collarbone. It looked a little like a starburst. 

_Someone shot him_ Andrew thought, and he hoped they were dead. From there he brought his hand to Neil’s other shoulder, tracing the knife wound that curled around his sternum with the side of his index finger to the large red imprint of an iron. He lined his fingers up with the indents, as a quiet sort of fury washed over him. 

The flush on Neil’s skin had crawled down to his chest and Andrew pressed his hand to it, over the curved knife-scar, fingertips brushing the edge of the iron mark. 

“These are not ugly,” he said to Neil, his gaze steady as he gave him this truth. Neil’s eyes widened at Andrew’s words and a vulnerable line appeared between his brows. 

“Andrew,” he whispered. He sounded unsteady. “Kiss me.” 

Andrew leaned down and kissed him. 

He adjusted Neil’s legs and placed Neil’s hands in his hair. Neil curled his fingers immediately and tugged, almost second-nature by now from how many times Andrew has given him this concession. The kisses started off slow, but it wasn’t long before they remembered the desperation from before, and soon every kiss was laced with fire and need. 

Andrew’s shirt had ridden up between kissing Neil and tugging him closer by his belt loops so when Andrew pressed down and Neil arched his back, there was a moment where their bare stomachs touched, overheated skin sliding against overheated skin. Neil made another choked sound at the contact and Andrew caught his hands from where they were making a mess in his hair and raised them above his head. Neil gladly let Andrew hold his hands in place with his own, his kisses turning pleased when Andrew laced their fingers together. 

Andrew could feel that Neil was hard, and every time he pressed his hips into Neil’s, Neil would gasp and rock forward. Andrew let him the first few times, then he held Neil’s hip down with one hand and fumbled with the zipper on his jeans with the other. 

Neil’s hips jerked forward so Andrew waited until he was sure he would be good and stop squirming everywhere, then he grabbed Neil’s hands and pressed them into the mattress by his wrists. Neil curled his hands into fists, fingernails digging into the soft flesh of his palms. Andrew forced his thumb between them so Neil wouldn’t hurt himself and tugged on the zipper at the front of Neil’s jeans.

“Yes?” he asked and Neil nodded eagerly, quivering with the effort to stay still. 

“Words,” Andrew ordered. They’d done this before, but it was still new and too tenuous for Andrew to take Neil’s nod as consent, no matter how enthusiastic it was. He needed to hear that verbal confirmation or else he would not continue. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Neil managed to gasp and Andrew reached for the lotion he kept in his bed-side drawer and slipped his hand under the elastic of Neil’s boxers. 

When they finished, they took a couple minutes to unwind from the high. Neil looked blissed out, slumping into the mattress with a small smile that softened the rest of his face. Neither one of them were ready to separate long enough to clean the mess they had made, so they exchanged sloppy kisses until Andrew’s jaw began to ache and his lips felt tingly from so much kissing. 

This, too, was new. Andrew was used to leaving after getting the other person off. He never stayed long enough to get himself off and cuddle afterwards, but it was becoming a habit with Neil that was hard to break. Andrew didn’t totally hate it.

Andrew sighed and curled his hand around Neil’s hip. They’d made a mess, both their pants left unzipped, but Neil’s eyes drooped and Andrew could feel his own exhaustion beginning to lull him to sleep.

The door opening flushed all of that drowsiness out.

“Andrew, what do you think – _Oh my God!_ ”

It was chaos. Andrew had yanked the blanket over Neil’s exposed chest as soon as he’d heard the doorknob turning, but Nicky had seen enough to know what was happening. He stood in the doorway, agape, and then turned abruptly on his heel before Andrew could get his pants in order and murder him. 

He’d thrown the first thing he could get his hands on after him but Nicky was already fleeing down the hall, rapid footprints like gunshots down the stairs, and the pillow fell harmlessly against the wall. When Neil was fully covered and Andrew had his fly zipped, Andrew leapt up and slammed the door shut, locking it for good measure. 

When he turned around, Neil was scrambling to put a shirt on – it wasn’t his but he didn’t seem to care – and then he pulled the blanket over his head so that all of his face was covered except for the top of his head. Andrew could still see enough to know that he was bright red with embarrassment. 

“I thought you said Nicky was at work,” Neil croaked.

“He’s supposed to be,” Andrew hissed in response. 

He could feel the back of his neck heating up with his own mortification. Usually Nicky texted when he got off from work early, but Andrew had left his phone downstairs. He’d assumed that he would have the house to himself for another couple hours, with Nicky at Sweeties and Aaron at some chemistry study group. It’s not like Andrew invited Neil over expecting to get them off, but by the time things were getting heated the thought to lock the door hadn’t even crossed his mind. He cursed whatever god or deity there was for his cousin’s affinity for forgetting to knock before barging in. 

“Do you think anyone would notice if we climbed out the window and made a break for it?” Neil asked, voice muffled from the blanket still pulled over his head. 

Andrew thought of the drop, the concrete below, and the neighbors seeing two sweaty teenagers hobbling around with broken bones from falling out of the damn window. “I’d rather crawl under the bed and die,” Andrew muttered. 

“We could do that too.”

Andrew shook his head, though Neil couldn’t see him. 

He would never hear the end of this. He hadn’t come out to Nicky and now he would never get the chance to. Not that he was planning on it, anyway. Nicky was always going to be insufferable once he found out that Andrew was also gay. And it’s not like Andrew was expecting to actually date anyone or go further than casual hookups, so he never thought the conversation would come up. Andrew wasn’t the greatest at math, but he calculated the odds of Nicky minding his own business and came to a resounding zero. 

“Andrew?” Neil called from where he was still hiding under the blanket. He poked his head out of the comforter just enough to reveal his eyes. 

In any other situation, Andrew might have felt that strange fuzzy feeling that was becoming more apparent around Neil, but a gray stone of dread had settled in his stomach instead. Andrew slumped down next to him, shoving all other thoughts to the back of his head. Or he at least tried to. They still simmered, swirling around until it was all he could think about. He bit at his nails.

They ended up finishing the movie. Andrew fetched his laptop from the ground after he and Neil changed out of their soiled clothes and rewinded it to the part they left off. Neither one of them was ready to go downstairs and face whatever was waiting for them, so when the credits for _Dracula_ started rolling, they watched _The Wolfman_ for good measure. 

Eventually Neil had to go home, so Andrew walked him down, half-expecting to see Nicky sheepishly lurking downstairs, but his cousin was nowhere to be seen and his bedroom door was wide open, his room empty. He must have run right out the front door. That did nothing to sooth Andrew’s unease.

Logically, Andrew knew he had nothing to fear about accidentally outing himself to Nicky. Nicky was gay and nothing but supportive, but Andrew hated that his outing was not on his terms. He hated that he was no longer in control, that he had given away something he wasn’t ready to give yet.

Nicky returned not long after Neil left. He ambled in through the front door with an awkward smile and a plastic bag behind his back. 

“Andrew,” he said, setting the bag down on the coffee table, “we need to talk.”

Andrew’s stomach dropped when he realized exactly where this conversation was heading. He eyed the bag warily; he was one thousand percent sure he did not want to know what was in there.

“No,” he decided and tried to make it around Nicky so he could hightail it upstairs before _this_ could happen, but Nicky stopped him with what sounded like a cross between his name and a high-pitched squawk.

“Sit down, and this will all be over soon,” he said placatingly. “I promise you’re not in trouble.” 

“I’m not doing this with you,” Andrew said but Nicky pinned him with one of his rare _I’m being a parent and you gotta listen to me right now_ looks so Andrew reluctantly sat across the table from Nicky, wishing he could be anywhere but here. 

“Okay!” Nicky said, rallying quickly. “I already did this with Aaron but with you, it’s going to be different so thank god I didn’t give you both the talk at the same time like I originally planned because that would have been awful. I would have had to do this _three_ times. Twice with you, because you would have needed to have a completely different talk because Neil has different parts, of course. Unless he’s – ”

“ _Nicky_ ,” Andrew snapped. He could feel his ears growing warm and he pulled his hood over his head to hide them. 

“Right, right.” Nicky said. He took a deep breath and reached for the bag and pulled out condoms and a bottle of lube. Andrew was starting to rethink not climbing out the window. “Now, it’s important that you have the right _tools_ before you start experimenting sexually. Safe sex is incredibly important, especially for beginners. I’m sure you’ve done your own research, but in case you haven’t – ”

Andrew pulled his hood further down his face. 

The front door opening put a welcome pause in Nicky’s tirade until Andrew realized that it was Aaron who entered. His features morphed into that familiar scowl as he took in the scene happening in the living room, his eyes darting between Nicky and Andrew with suspicion. They landed on the items laid out on the coffee table. He balked. 

“No,” he said, and high-tailed it upstairs, backpack thudding as he tripped in his haste to get away. 

“Right,” Nicky said, recovering from the distraction Aaron had caused with his entrance. “Okay, and then – ”

Andrew sat through another fifteen minutes of excruciating torture. There were diagrams involved, though Andrew had no idea where Nicky could have gotten such a thing. For one painful moment Andrew imagined Nicky printing them off at the computer at the local library and suddenly Andrew found himself wishing he had put aside his fear of heights and jumped out the window, broken bones and neighbors be damned. 

Once Nicky’s lecture was done, Andrew was about ready to crawl out of his skin. He stood stiffly from the couch, planning to grab his keys the first chance he got and make an escape, but Nicky stopped him again.

“One last thing,” Nicky said and Andrew braced himself for the worst, but Nicky only pulled out a small piece of fabric from his pocket. He unfolded it and handed it over to Andrew. 

Andrew stared down at the rainbow flag Nicky had given him. The colors were bright and the flag was new, so Nicky must have bought it with the rest of the “supplies.”

“I know the situation wasn’t ideal,” Nicky said with a grimace. “But I’m really happy for you, and I hope that Neil makes you happy too.”

Andrew didn’t know what to say, so he took his usual route of silence. Nicky wasn’t perturbed though. He gave Andrew another smile and retreated into his room, leaving Andrew to stand alone in the living room with his token of pride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading!!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thank you to everyone who's leaving comments/kudos ! it really means so much :") i hope y'all enjoy the chapter!
> 
> tw: depression, disordered sleeping and eating, arguments, mentions of past self-harm, panic attacks, allusions to past child abuse

Aaron was sulking when Andrew sauntered downstairs one Saturday afternoon, but Andrew paid him no mind. He was more concerned with scrounging up something he could eat, despite his lack of appetite telling him to leave it.

He’d slept too late, and he felt the drag of his eyelids every time he blinked, the fog in his brain as he tried to recall the nightmare that had kept him tossing and turning for most of the night and half of the day. Andrew couldn’t remember the details of his dream, but it left him queasy and out-of-sorts when he finally broke free to find the late-afternoon light streaming through his bedroom window. He would have kept sleeping if his empty stomach hadn’t forced him out of bed to forage for food.

He stumbled across Aaron in the kitchen, glaring at him. Aaron had been spoiling for a fight ever since he saw the hickeys Neil left on Andrew’s neck, but Andrew didn’t have the time or energy to deal with him.

Aaron grabbed his homework and stuffed it in his bag when Andrew’s eyes skipped over him without a word. His brother shot him a venomous look as he shoved past him, jostling Andrew’s arm. Andrew felt his throat tighten as revulsion shuddered through his body when their shoulders brushed. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing away the sensation of phantom hands holding him down and squeezing the blood out of his wrists as they… 

Andrew expelled it from his mind, but it kept bouncing back in flashes. He couldn’t remember his nightmare, but he didn’t have to. He had already lived through it.

Andrew drew a deep breath of air into his lungs and held it for several seconds before exhaling slowly out of his mouth like Bee had taught him during one of their sessions. He did this a couple times before opening the pantry to look for something to eat. He stared at the food lined up on the shelf for a long moment, eyes glazing over the cans and resting on the cereal. Nothing was appealing to him. He didn’t bother opening the freezer, he’d finished his quart of ice cream off last night, so he closed the pantry and dragged himself back upstairs empty-handed.

Twin footsteps followed him up. Andrew didn’t turn around as Aaron trailed him to his room, he was like a pesky fly buzzing around his head. He closed the door in Aaron’s face, but Aaron slammed it open and forced his way in. Andrew eyed his bed, wanting nothing more than to burrow beneath his pillows and pull the covers over his head. He wondered if Aaron would go away if he ignored him long enough, but Aaron showed no signs of moving any time soon, nor was he intent on playing the waiting game.

“What happened to your neck?” Aaron asked, though according to the look on his face, he knew exactly where Andrew had gotten the fading purple marks, and who had given them to him. “You’re seriously still hanging around Josten? What happened to no dating?”

“None of your business,” Andrew said, forcing the words out with the little air he still had in his lungs. His eyes ached with the strain of keeping them open.

Andrew could explain that him and Neil weren’t dating, but he wasn’t entirely sure if that wouldn’t be a lie. He didn’t know how to put in words what he had with Neil, and he certainly wouldn’t spell it out for Aaron if he could. Instead he flopped down on his bed and folded his arms behind his head, keeping his eyes on the far wall where only a small rainbow flag and a few paper cranes were pinned by their wings. 

He was too tired to deal with Aaron right now, too tired for any of it really. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

“You’re such an _asshole_ ,” Aaron hissed. “So, what? You’re the only one that gets to date then? You get so mad at me for breaking the deal and then you go and do the same thing? That’s not _fair_. Just because you’re miserable all the time doesn’t mean you have to make everyone around you miserable too.”

Andrew let the words drift past him, hardly grasping anything to retain. Still, he felt the need to say, “The deal was over weeks ago. You were just too stupid to realize it.”

_You win, Aaron._

Aaron was quiet for a second, startled. He didn’t look like he’d won. Anger morphed his face into a twisted snarl. 

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he said. Andrew could see him trembling from the corner of his eye. “How was I supposed to know that when you didn’t tell me anything? I’m not a fucking mind reader. You said _nothing_. You never talk to me about anything – ”

“Why should I?” challenged Andrew. “The deal is over.”

“You never talked to me before it was over,” Aaron snapped. “You’ve hardly said shit to me since I’ve known you.”

“So what?” Andrew tracked the lines in the wall with bleary eyes. His eyelids were starting to droop. The room began to blur. He wished Aaron would go away. “I said I would protect you and I did. It is your fault for expecting anything different.”

Aaron blew up. He let loose a stream of profanity that would have had Nicky clutching his pearls. “You wouldn’t even _look_ at me after mom died, and I’m supposed to believe that you killed her to protect me?” he screamed in the face of Andrew’s blank calmness. “That’s so bullshit. You did it because you hated her because she gave you up and you’re punishing me for it now. How was that supposed to protect me?”

A flicker of that deep-set rage cut through Andrew’s apathy. It fizzled out quickly, leaving behind nothing but smoke and the cotton-stuffed feeling of emptiness. Andrew shrugged. It wasn’t his fault Aaron didn’t believe him.

“Why won’t you just talk to me?” Aaron asked, voice cracking down the middle. Andrew frowned, eyes flicking toward him for the first time, sure he had misheard the quiet vulnerability laced through his words. Aaron’s chest was rising fast, his eyes glazed over like he was holding back tears. Andrew’s frown deepened. He hadn’t expected this.

“Fine,” he said. Aaron hadn’t looked so upset since Tilda’s funeral, since Andrew had locked him in a bathroom and forced him through withdrawal. A part of Andrew twinged that Aaron was so ready to officially end the deal and get away from him. Whatever, Aaron could have what he wanted. 

Andrew said, “The deals over. You can date whoever you want and I’ll fuck off forever. Happy?”

“You’re not listening. You never listen,” Aaron said. He was properly upset now. The anger had left him, and so had the fight. “You said it was supposed to be you and me against the world, but it wasn’t. You kept ignoring me and I felt so _alone._ The only reason I agreed to the stupid deal was because I thought I didn’t have to be alone anymore. Then mom was dead and you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Andrew’s mouth flattened into a thin line. Aaron was shaking like a leaf on a twig, desperate eyes scouring every inch of Andrew’s face, probably looking for some semblance of emotion. But Andrew had been wiped clean, and Aaron would find nothing. He thought Aaron would scowl like he usually did, but the expression on his face wavered like the rest of him.

“I never wanted a protector,” he said finally, defeated. “I wanted a brother.”

The first tear slipped down Aaron’s face and he turned away, angrily scrubbing it away with the palm of his hand. Andrew heard him sniff, watched his shoulders shake. He didn’t know how to respond, didn’t even know what to think. He’d always thought Aaron hated him and was aching to leave. He could have never guessed at Aaron wanting _this._

Andrew tried to parse it out, separate his thoughts into neat little columns, but he could hardly think with all the white noise blotting everything out in his head. He refused to feel guilty, but there was a lump in his stomach, a twinge in his chest.

“Whatever, Andrew,” Aaron said when Andrew had failed to respond. He stalked out of the room, keeping his face turned carefully away like that would make Andrew forget his tears. Andrew stared after him, frowning, and let Aaron leave.

_ _

Andrew wasn’t sure how long he stared at his ceiling, too tired to sleep, but eventually the light gave way to shadow. When it grew too dark to see without turning on the light, Andrew pulled himself out of his bed and grabbed his keys. The house was too restricting and he couldn’t stand being in his room any longer, staring at the same piles of dirty laundry and the paper cranes lined up on his desk. He needed air.

Aaron’s room was silent but his light was on, and Nicky wasn’t home yet so Andrew kept his footsteps quiet so nobody would notice. It wasn’t hard, Andrew had long-since trained himself to move through a darkened house without alerting anyone, sticking to the wall, avoiding the creaky parts of the floor. At one point he had depended on this ability, and now it was useful again.

He spent the night at Neil’s, then stayed all of the next day, ignoring Nicky’s calls and texts asking where he was. Andrew knew he should have replied, at least to soothe his cousin’s panicking nerves, but he felt the weight of the world pressing down on him and his body felt too heavy to move. So he laid his head in Neil’s lap and watched rerun after rerun of The Great British Bake Off while Neil traced the shell of his ear with the tip of his finger.

Neil finally asked what was wrong on the second day. Andrew could tell he had been waiting to ask that since Andrew first showed up at his doorstep with nothing but a bag of clothes and a hollowness in his eyes. 

He could feel the wordless question buzzing around Neil, could see the concern in his eyes when he catalogued the unresponsive slump of his shoulders. Andrew said nothing and Neil didn’t push, but Andrew felt itchy and anxious, and he needed to get away again.

He told Neil he was going home, but he parked his car at a park and climbed in the backseat. Facing his family seemed like a monolithic task, and Andrew didn’t think he could handle it at the moment. He still hadn’t answered any of Nicky’s messages, growing more frantic as the hours passed by, but he was sure they could manage fine without him. They could stew just a little bit longer.

Andrew lit a cigarette. Usually he’d never smoke in his car, he didn’t even allow food in here, but it was cold outside, even with the sun shining, and Andrew just wanted to lay down for a little bit. 

He smoked until his cigarettes were gone. He used the cup holder as a makeshift ashtray. His phone lay dead and useless in his pocket. The day bled away and the sun began to set, turning the sky from a bruised purple to a dark, starless navy.

He returned home well into the night, when everyone would be asleep and he could slip in undetected. He was quiet when he sneaked back into the house, just as he had been leaving. Andrew was good at being quiet, he’d learned how at a very young age and it still came in handy. 

Andrew had run away a couple times in foster care, when everything had gotten to be too much and he needed an out that wasn’t permanent. He would stay out for a couple days before returning, often unnoticed in the homes that had too many children to keep track of the ones that came and went. No one really cared all that much when he left, and weren’t too concerned when he came back, even when he was gone for so long he could have been classified as a missing person.

His reappearance did not go unnoticed tonight.

The lights were off in the house when Andrew entered, and he found Aaron asleep in the armchair with his head propped in the palm of his hand. He faced the door, as if he were standing guard before he fell asleep. Andrew passed him and found Nicky slumped and listless but awake in one of the kitchen chairs, several mugs of coffee scattered around his open laptop. 

His face was haggard and puffy, tangled hair pulled back into a messy bun at the back of his head. The blue glow of the laptop cast odd shadows across his face, making his cheeks look sunken and hollow. When Andrew entered the kitchen, Nicky looked up sharply, hands paused over the laptop and eyes squinting into the darkness.

“Andrew,” he said when he recognized who was standing in the doorway. He pushed himself up from the table and crossed the room in three big strides. He had Andrew wrapped in a hug before he could dodge it and Andrew could feel him trembling. “Thank god.”

Andrew wiggled out of his grip and Nicky let him go. His eyes had welled up in tears and he let them fall before taking a deep, steadying breath. “We were worried sick. No one knew where you were and I couldn’t get a hold of you and I thought something terrible happened to you. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Andrew blinked at his fretful cousin. He’d only been gone for a couple days, and it wasn’t a school night. He hadn’t expected anyone to notice his absence. He shrugged to answer Nicky’s question, then shook his head in case Nicky was thinking of patting him down for injuries.

“Thank God,” Nicky said again. He looked exhausted, circles smudged under his eyes as dark as coal. The lines on his face seemed starker somehow, making him look years older than he actually was. “I called Sweeties and Eden’s and Neil’s uncle just in case – I had to get his number from the phonebook, I didn’t even know those things were still a _thing_ – but he wasn’t home and Neil said he was alone and I thought you might be dead in a ditch or kidnapped because you’ve never been away from home for so long and then I started panicking so I called Erik even though I know he can’t help because he’s in Germany but I didn’t know what else to _do_. Aaron went out to look for you but you’d taken the car and – ”

“Nicky,” interrupted Andrew, voice a dull rasp. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said a word to anybody. “I’m not hurt.”

He didn’t say he was alright, because he wasn’t, but Nicky still shook with relief. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I can make you something to eat really quick.”

It was almost two in the morning, and Andrew had hardly eaten anything for days, but the thought of putting food in his mouth made him nauseous. He shook his head; he had no more words to spare so he turned to go upstairs. 

Aaron had stirred since Andrew came in, and he looked wide-eyed and disoriented from being woken. His eyes landed on Andrew and he made an abortive motion, as if he were going to get up. Andrew heard him and Nicky exchange a few words but they were too quiet, and he too far away, for him to hear anything.

Andrew closed and locked his door when he got to his bedroom. The bed was left unmade, sheets a rumpled mess and blankets sliding to the floor. The thought of lying in a bed, even with the door locked and a knife under his pillow, made Andrew want to disappear again.

His chest was tight and he could feel the panic clawing its way up his throat, shaken loose from the gray fog he’d previously been trapped in. He tried to take deep, even breaths, but nothing was working. He couldn’t stand the sight of the bed but every time he closed his eyes, he was thrown back into a different room, a different bed, a different nightmare. He wanted to forget, wanted to claw the memories out of his head until his hands were bloody and he couldn’t remember a thing but he just pressed his back to the door and tried to breathe. His wrists throbbed with phantom pain.

There was a knock on the door, jolting Andrew from his thoughts. Andrew’s heart beat hard in his chest and it took a moment for him to realize he was sitting on the floor, back to the door, forehead pressed to his knees. He raised his head and catalogued the room he was in, the paper cranes, the flag, the tiny fortune teller that had fallen off his desk. 

Bed in the corner. Desk crammed beside it. He was in his room. He was alone.

Another knock. Nicky’s voice cutting through the dark, “Andrew?”

Andrew didn’t respond. A part of him thought Nicky would try the handle, but the other side was silent for a beat before wood creaked and Andrew felt Nicky shifting against the door.

“I’m sorry I hugged you,” he said. His voice was closer than Andrew expected, lower to the ground. He was back to back with Andrew, one and a half inches of wood the only thing separating them. “I know you don’t like that.”

Andrew shrugged, even though Nicky couldn’t see him.

Nicky continued to ramble. He sounded calmer than he did in the kitchen, more tired. Andrew wondered how long he’d been awake making calls and searching for him. Andrew thought, _I wasn’t lost_ and he wondered if that were true. 

“I’m so relieved you’re okay though. And I’m glad you’re home. I was so worried.” He gave a short, sad laugh. “I was a mess. Aaron was too. I think he blamed himself but he wouldn’t talk to me about it. You can just tell that sort of thing, you know?”

Andrew closed his eyes, chin dipping to his chest. He was tired too, exhausted really. But the more sleep he got only seemed to drag him down even more. It felt hopeless. 

“I know you don’t really talk to me because you have Betsy and now Neil too, but I’m always here for you if you need me, okay?” Nicky said. Andrew could hear him moving on the other side of the door. “I’m always here for you. You’re family.”

Andrew released a shaky breath. 

Cass had said that to him, once upon a time. It was an awful thing to say to a kid who never had a family, but craved it with every fiber of his being. Cass said _you’re part of the family now, AJ_ , and that meant hands holding him down at night and Cass turning a blind eye in the morning. It meant a cold blade against a pale wrist, blood against bathroom tiles, fear of losing everything when he had nothing.

Nicky paused and Andrew wondered if he’d heard the trembling in his breathing. 

“We love you _so much_ , Andrew,” Nicky said, and that meant Nicky waiting up for him and Aaron looking for him. It meant movie nights and game nights, lasagna and enchiladas and cake on birthdays. It felt like a kick to the stomach.

Andrew bent over his knees, hugging them tight to his chest. He had fought so hard for Cass’ artificial love and for Nicky just to _give_ it to him… It cut him deeply, deeper than any knife in his hand ever could.

Andrew hadn’t believed Nicky the first time he said those words. He wasn’t made to be loved, and Nicky loving him with no strings attached seemed something out of a fairytale. It was too good to be true.

Andrew remembered sitting in the shower, the too-hot water beating down on his skin, thinking, _what do I have to give? What will it cost this time?_ And when Nicky never named a price, Andrew didn’t know if he could trust that. Family had always been a double-edged sword and a part of him still expected to have to pay up. He didn’t know if he could afford it.

But Nicky was good at drawing blood out of stones and he was good at loving things that shouldn’t be loved. It was so different from living in the Spears’ home, and Andrew didn’t know how to reconcile the two.

The truth was, he wanted it so badly and he hated himself for wanting after getting hurt so many times. He wanted and he ached and he still didn’t know if he could let himself have this because if he acknowledged his family, recognized that they cared about him, then that meant Cass had never loved him at all, and Andrew wasn’t sure if he was willing to accept that. He knew, deep down, that she must not have, but he had nearly killed himself clinging to that small hope and throwing it away felt like destruction.

He had given so much of himself, and for what?

How could he open himself up like that again, knowing he wouldn’t survive it if he lost it this time? Losing Cass had almost destroyed Andrew. He wanted to believe that Aaron and Nicky wouldn’t leave, but he didn’t know if he could. Not if he was as broken as he was.

Andrew knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t going to let himself get hurt again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaron: maybe if i make andrew mad, then he will acknowledge me  
> andrew:  
> aaron: *cries*


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second to last chapter ahh!!!
> 
> tw: panic attacks, depressive episode, uncomfortable sexual content (not explicit, gets shut down pretty quickly), discussion of self harm, brief mention of a character thinking about suicide in the past

Andrew was crouched underneath the sink smoking a cigarette in the boy’s bathroom when Neil found him. He’d ditched his English class, not really in the mood for discussing Dorian Gray’s inexorable descent into evil, so he camped out in the restroom and waited for the bell that would release students from their classes. Unlike Neil, he’d locked the door behind him so no one else could get in. 

Neil, however, had at least two sets of lock pins on him at all times.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Neil said, sticking his lock pins in his pocket. He looped his fingers around the straps of his backpack as he gazed down at Andrew. He couldn’t completely hide the concern in his gaze.

There was a strange sense of deja vu, simply in reverse.

Andrew smoked his cigarette to the filter as he regarded Neil. Neil, ever-patient, watched him. Andrew could ignore him. Breeze past and leave him behind. He could let him go to find bigger, better things. If Neil had managed to see something in the makeshift, scrambled-together pieces that was Andrew Minyard, then Andrew was sure he could do the same for someone else. Someone more whole.

Andrew didn’t move though, and neither did Neil. Unlike a certain someone, Andrew had always faced his problems head on instead of running away from them, and something told Andrew that Neil would follow him to the ends of the earth if he had to. He stubbed out his cigarette on the dirty linoleum floor, smearing ashes against black grime that Andrew suspected was older than he was.

“How?” he grunted eventually, voice rusted and unused.

Neil held up his phone. “Texted Nicky when you didn’t show up for class. He said he dropped you and Aaron off this morning, so you should have been there. Stuart passed on my number to him in case you disappeared again,” he rushed to explain when Andrew frowned at him. “When you came over a couple days ago, you didn’t say you were missing.”

“A real goddamn detective,” Andrew muttered to no one in particular. 

He hadn’t really said anything to anyone that day, but Neil didn’t sound accusatory, so Andrew didn’t explain himself. There was a small wrinkle between his brows though, a crack in his blank mask. Neil had always worn his emotions on his face, however subtle they may be, and he couldn’t hide them now. Not from Andrew.

Andrew felt the pull to press his thumb between Neil’s brow and smooth the worried lines away. But he was calamitous, his touch corroding, and Andrew didn’t want to be the person who finally destroyed Neil Josten when he had clung to life for so very long.

“Let’s get out of here,” Andrew said instead.

“Sweeties?” suggested Neil, the lines softening in his face. Andrew gnawed on his thumbnail, thinking. The taste of nicotine leftover from his cigarette was acrid on his tongue. Sweeties was too much right now. He didn’t want to be around other people; he was trying to breathe, not whittle himself further into nothing.

“Is your uncle home?” he asked. When Neil shook his head no, Andrew said, “Your place, then.”

“Okay,” Neil agreed, and extended his pinky towards Andrew. Andrew didn’t need help up, but he suspected that Neil was trying to distract him from chewing his nails into bloody bits. A look of relief passed over his face when Andrew linked his pinky with Neil’s, and the thought that Neil maybe needed reassurance too occurred to Andrew too late to be remarked on. 

Neil didn’t initiate any other contact than that, and when Andrew withdrew his hand and shoved it in his pocket, Neil let him.

They walked to Neil’s house. It wasn’t much farther than Andrew’s place, but the spring heat creeping into the day soaked into Andrew’s black hoodie and made him feel overheated and itchy. At the sight of the large house with its wide French windows and carefully-curated garden, Andrew let out a quiet breath of relief.

The house was empty and clean as usual. Vases more expensive than anything Andrew had ever owned carefully lined the hallway and tasteful decor was placed in strategic spots around the house. Neil’s room was much the same. Neat and orderly, the pressed gray sheets and matching curtains drawn over the windows came straight out of a magazine for interior design.

The room had a dusty feel to it, although Andrew didn’t see a speck of dirt in sight. It felt devoid of meaningful things, like a showroom in a model home. Aside from the furniture and Neil’s walkman laying out on the desk and Andrew’s atrociously orange letterman jacket that hung from the back of his chair, Neil’s room was empty.

Andrew knew, however, that the large closet to the side showed a different story. 

Neil had shown it to him the last time they were here, and every square inch of it was covered with colorful posters of bands and Exy players tacked to the wall. A record player was hidden behind his clothes, and he kept the records in a decorative box that Stuart had given to him on his birthday a couple years ago, along with the origami frog Andrew had given him. All of it hidden from prying eyes as meticulously as Neil hid himself.

Neil flopped on his bed, effectively rumpling his sheets, and kicked off his shoes. One hit the wall and fell to the floor. The other dangled off his foot before flopping half-obscured under his bed. The illusion of this being anything but a teenager’s room was broken. “We can finish watching The Great British Bakeoff or something,” he said.

Andrew looked from him to the blank TV mounted on Neil’s wall. The Great British Bakeoff was something Andrew could watch without really watching it. On better days he could silently cheer on his favored competitor, and on bad ones such as these he could let his eyes grow hazy and unfocussed as he pretended to stare at the screen, letting his mind wander or go blank for hours at a time. Neither option sounded that appealing.

The Walkman still lay on Neil’s desk, so Andrew grabbed it and passed it over to Neil. He opened the drawer where he remembered Neil kept his cassette tapes and grabbed one at random. On the front of the tape he’d chosen, Neil had taken a marker and drawn a fat storm cloud with thin lines of rain falling onto a sad-looking caricature ghost. Andrew could smell the strong scent of sharpie when he turned it over in his hands, the ink still new enough to smear slightly at the edges. He handed it over to Neil and Neil passed him an earbud.

They listened to music for a while, each with a single earbud in their ear so Andrew could hear Neil’s steady breathing and Neil could hear the radio-static buzzing in Andrew’ head. 

Andrew laid on his back and stared at the ceiling while Neil sat cross-legged on his bed and worked through his Calculus homework, head occasionally bobbing to the music. The music was more of the same of what Andrew and Neil listened to on the swings the night that it snowed for the first time, but it was slower now, sadder. Andrew let the somber music wash over him, the scratch of Neil’s pencil against the paper keeping him from washing out to sea.

Neil made a distressed sound about nine songs in. When Andrew shifted his gaze in his direction, he saw the familiar scowl of concentration he got whenever he was working through a difficult problem.

“Have you done question 18 yet?” Neil asked, worrying his lip with his teeth. “My equation is right but I keep getting different answers.”

“No,” Andrew said. He’d made his calculus homework into a family of mini paper cranes early this morning, when he’d given up trying to sleep. “Google it.”

Neil rolled his eyes. He never googled the answers to the calculus homework. For reasons unbeknownst to Andrew, he liked to do the math himself. “Helpful,” he huffed.

“Use your weird math-brain, then,” Andrew said.

Neil didn’t respond but his mouth quirked up into a sharp split-second of a half-smile and Andrew’s eyes caught on it like cotton snagged on a thistle. It seemed to clear a bit of the static from his head. He pushed himself up and batted Neil’s homework away.

“I was working on that,” Neil complained half-heartedly, but he’d sensed the change in Andrew’s mood and was already looking at his lips. “Are you okay to…”

“Shut up,” Andrew said. He had always avoided touch in the past, especially on bad days like these, but Neil has helped before and Andrew felt itchy and restless. He wanted to do… _something_. Kissing Neil surely would break Andrew out of his gray-hazed funk.

With one hand pressed flat against Neil’s bed and the other holding Neil’s jaw, Andrew pushed until Neil was laying against the headboard with Andrew between his knees. Neil’s eyes darted around Andrew’s face like he was having trouble deciding where he wanted his gaze to linger. Finally, his gaze landed on Andrew’s.

Andrew waited until Neil tucked his hands in his back pockets before he asked, “Yes, or no?”

“Yes,” Neil said, and Andrew closed the gap.

Kissing Neil has never felt weird before, but now weird is all Andrew felt. A shudder was working its way under his skin, but not the good shivery-kind that shot down his spine whenever Neil kissed his neck or made that soft-sweet noise of his. It put Andrew on edge, made him feel jittery and shaky.

Neil pulled away. “Andrew,” he started but Andrew shook his head.

“Don’t stop,” he said. Neil looked unsure but he leaned in and kissed Andrew again.

Andrew started to feel normal after a couple of minutes, and then the kisses grew heated. He pushed Neil flat against his bed and fumbled with the zipper of his jeans with shaky hands. Andrew didn’t know why he had shaky hands.

“Andrew.” Neil stopped again. “I only want this if you do.”

The knee-jerk response to that would be to claim that he wanted nothing, but Andrew forced himself to meet Neil’s eyes and say, “I want this.”

“You’ll stop if you need to?”

“Yes, idiot,” Andrew said.

Neil inspected him for a second longer before nodding and letting Andrew take off his jeans. When they were deposited on the floor, Andrew’s breath caught in his chest but for none of the right reasons. Neil’s shirt was rucked up to reveal his stomach and usually the sight would make Andrew tease him until Neil practically begged for Andrew to blow him, but Andrew didn’t move.

He leaned in to kiss Neil’s mouth, because kissing was safe, but then Neil’s knee grazed Andrew’s stomach. Inevitable, considering how close they were, but it felt like a hot iron branded against his skin. He felt nauseous and out of sorts, his stomach roiling from the contact.

 _You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay,_ Andrew told himself, but he didn’t feel okay.

He couldn’t move. His hands were on Neil’s hips but he couldn’t _move._ The world blurred, threatening to pull him back into a memory Andrew was trying so hard to chase away. He tracked the now-familiar scars on Neil’s belly with his eyes, a last-ditch attempt to anchor himself. He was _here_ , not there. He was with Neil. Neil was safe. He couldn’t feel his hands. Why was he so afraid?

Neil had gone still underneath him, and when Andrew stayed hunched and unmoving, he gently pushed Andrew away with a hand on his chest and extracted himself, careful not to touch him anywhere else.

There was a sudden rush of relief, followed closely by a wave of ugliness crashing against him, screaming at him. Shame for not being good enough, guilt for feeling relieved when Neil scooted away, and the all-encompassing self-loathing Andrew felt for the simple fact that he was himself. He wanted to ball these emotions in his chest and throw them out or stuff them down so deep that they were unrecognizable, but he did none of those things. 

Instead he just pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Nausea and shame at what he had done still coiled through him.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Neil asked, and there it was again. That _concern_.

Andrew shrugged. He didn’t think he had any words left in him. Every time he tried to respond, they got trapped somewhere behind his teeth. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth and he didn’t think he’d ever say a word again.

“I should have stopped sooner, I’m sorry,” Neil said. He looked genuinely distraught, as if any of this was his fault. Andrew hated himself just a little bit more for it.

“I’m just going to go home,” Andrew said. It took everything to be able to string the words together, and they weren’t even the right ones.

“I’ll walk with you,” Neil tried, but Andrew shook his head. He bit at his bottom lip, and remedied, “Text me when you get home, okay?”

Scooping up his backpack from where it had fallen to the floor, Andrew nodded and left.

* * *

Steam rose from the mug, curling into serpentine shapes before dissipating into the air. A pen was clutched in Betsy’s hand, lax until called into action. An errant thread stuck out of the sofa where Andrew had picked it free during one of their first sessions. Sunlight fought against the blinds closed over the windows, casting shadows over Andrew’s scuffed sneakers laying underneath the table. He’d taken them off so he could draw his socked feet up without getting the cushions dirty.

Now he sat cross-legged on the couch as Betsy directed him to name five things he saw, and then four he could feel to help reel him down from a panic attack. Andrew felt stretched thin, skin pulled tight over weary bones, but he began listing four things.

The first thing he felt was the plush sofa underneath him, somehow both soft and scratchy against his skin when he rubbed his hand across it. His lips were raw and cracked from biting them and picking off all the dead skin until they bled, and the cool air against the back of his neck gave little comfort. Finally, he turned his focus to the mug in his hands, the porcelain smooth and hot enough to trigger the nerve-endings in his palms. It stung, but Andrew wrapped his hands tighter around the cup. The heat kept him present.

“Good, Andrew,” encouraged Betsy. “Keep going.”

He listened for things he could hear. Someone yelling outside, the sound of a car engine backfiring, the bottom of Betsy’s shoe scraping against the carpet as she waited patiently for Andrew to finish.

“Two things you can smell.” 

The thick scent of hot chocolate was the only thing Andrew could pinpoint at first, but he closed his eyes and was able to pick out the incense Betsy lit before Andrew came in; cinnamon mixed with vanilla.

Andrew took a sip of his hot cocoa, letting it scald his tongue as he savored the rich chocolate-and-marshmallow taste. One thing he could taste. Chocolate.

“It’s getting bad again, Bee,” Andrew said after he’d finished his list. He rested his head against the back of the couch, a gesture of vulnerability he would only show to a very small number of people, especially when he felt so exposed already. “I’m supposed to be better now.”

Every word was a struggle to get out. Construct the word from the haze in his mind, form the word with his uncooperative mouth, push it out with the little air he had in his lungs. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

“Healing isn’t linear, Andrew,” Betsy reminded him. “A depressive episode does not cancel out your progress.

Andrew squeezed his eyes shut. He was so _tired._ He murmured, “It feels like it does.”

He heard the scratch of Betsy’s pen against paper. “Have you been using the coping mechanisms I taught you?”

Smoking and not eating and lying in bed not sleeping and letting the days drift by without him were definitely not the good coping mechanisms that Betsy had taught him, so Andrew shook his head but he did not elaborate.

He hadn’t been able to look at the paper cranes lined up on his desk, let alone create any new ones. In a period of self-destruction, Andrew had thrown out the origami paper Betsy had given him. He couldn’t make anything out of it. What he did make, he destroyed. He didn’t deserve the nice paper.

“It’s hard,” Andrew said. He didn’t mean the paper cranes, the exercises, or any of the other techniques Betsy had shown him. He meant all of it. Living, breathing, being a flesh-and-blood human being with impulses and memories and nightmares.

Traumatized. He was traumatized. Andrew knew that. He knew he was fucked up. He just didn’t understand why it had to be so goddamn hard all the time.

He hadn’t even realized he was starting to feel better until he hit this particular slump. If he’d known how far off the ground he’d managed to pick himself up, maybe his fear of heights would have reared its ugly head. Maybe it was better that he’d been knocked down again. At least here, he couldn’t fall any further.

“Nicky thinks I’m going to hurt myself,” Andrew said. Nicky was the only one who’d have any right to think that. Afterall, he was the one who found Betsy’s contact information in the paper after Andrew came to him one late night last year with a confession on his lips of how he was thinking of ending it all.

“Are you having thoughts of self-harm?” Betsy asked. Her voice was light, neutral. Her face betrayed nothing, although she knew about the pale scars lining Andrew’s wrists. Her neutrality was one of the things Andrew liked about her, even if it made her incredibly difficult to get a read on.

Andrew thought about Betsy’s question. No. Maybe. He didn’t know. The scars on his arms were old. They reminded Andrew of the first promise he had ever made; never again. He hadn’t broken it in five years, and Andrew had no intention of doing so now. The scars still hurt though, a bone-deep ache.

But there were other ways for someone to hurt themself. Andrew analyzed the impulse until he came to an answer. He threw the word around in his head, inspecting every side of it. Finally, he tossed it out for Betsy to catch. “No,” he said.

“That’s good.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate. Andrew suspected that she knew the answer already, she just wanted Andrew to say it. A reminder maybe, of the promise he made to himself.

“Nicky cares a lot about you,” Betsy noted when Andrew said nothing further. Andrew’s fingers tightened around the mug of hot chocolate. It was beginning to cool down, but he had barely finished half of it. 

“Yeah,” he agreed with a sigh. He could feel the mounting dread building in his chest. He tried to push it down, but it bubbled up into words Andrew had been thinking for a very long time. He placed his hot chocolate onto the coffee table and curled his fingers in his sleeves. “He should hate me.”

Betsy underlined something in her notepad. “Why do you think that?” she asked.

It was a simple equation with a simpler answer. Why should Nicky hate him? Because Andrew ruined his life.

Nicky already had something going in Germany, a happy life and a fiancé waiting for him back home, and he threw it away to play house with Andrew and Aaron after Tilda died. 

And for what? Two brothers who didn’t act like brothers because they never had the chance to learn. Multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Crying when he thought everyone else was asleep for weeks straight because it was too much, too much, too goddamn much and Andrew and Aaron never made it any easier for him. Nicky was stupid to discard what he had, even if it was just temporarily.

Betsy would call Nicky loyal, but Betsy wasn’t the one who had ruined someone’s life.

“Why shouldn’t he?” Andrew countered. As soon as he said it, he knew how Betsy would respond. He changed the subject.

“I’m thinking about letting Neil go.” This subject wasn’t much better, and Andrew regretted blurting the words out the way he did.

The problem was, Andrew was pretty sure he loved Neil. He squeezed his eyes shut. Impossible, unlovable boy keeps falling in love.

When he opened his eyes, he found Betsy regarding him over her wire-framed glasses. “We have talked about your self-destructive tendencies in past sessions, do you think that pushing Neil and your cousin away are manifestations of that?”

Andrew felt the beginnings of a frown on his face. “They’ll all leave eventually, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Have they told you this?”

“I just know it,” Andrew said. He knew it in the way a body tenses right before it takes a punch. That instinctual bracing-of the muscles that comes from being hit too many times. You just know.

Everyone leaves, and eventually Neil and Nicky will too. Aaron was already drifting away, free from the shackles of the deal. Soon enough Andrew will be alone again. It was easier to let everyone go instead of trying to hold on and getting hurt in the process.

“Andrew,” Betsy said, drawing his attention back to her. Her hands were clasped in her lap, notebook pushed to the side with the pen flat on top. Andrew hadn’t even noticed her close it. “I have something that I would like to discuss with you.”

Andrew felt a jolt spear through his stomach. Those words never preceded anything good. He gritted his teeth and nodded for Betsy to continue.

“I think it may be beneficial for you,” she began, “to start taking medication. Antidepressants.”

“No,” Andrew said immediately. “I don’t want them. I don’t need any fucking drugs.”

Pills were what had destroyed his mother, and she nearly took Aaron with her. Andrew wasn’t going to let that happen to him. He could figure this out himself, and he didn’t need anything else.

“It’s up to you, but I think you should think about it. If one medication doesn’t help, we can do something else. It’s not a one size fits all, we’ll find something that works for you,” Betsy assured, infinitely patient.

Andrew shook his head. His hands were shaking again. He gripped the sides of his neck, protecting it, and then lowered his head to his lap. “I’m not a fucking lab rat,” he said, strained.

“Okay,” Betsy said easily. “I’m going to give this to you, but I won’t bring it up again.”

Andrew sucked in a deep breath and pushed himself back up. Clutched in Betsy’s hands was a prescription. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “You can’t fix my kind of broken, Bee. Stop trying.”

Silence, except for the whir of the AC and Andrew’s agitated breathing.

“Andrew,” Betsy said, gentle. “You are not broken.”

“Whatever, Bee.”

Betsy’s lips thinned into a soft, disapproving line. “Do you remember during one of our first sessions where I asked you to pick a few positive words from a list that you thought represented you?” Andrew nodded. “What did you pick?”

“Strong,” he said. “Resilient.” He wasn’t sure if those words best represented him, but he had liked the sound of them when he picked them. Amongst words like _kind_ and _intelligent_ and _altruistic_ , they were the ones that stuck out to him the most.

Betsy lifted her hands, palms up, as if proving a point. “You have gotten through so much, Andrew, and you will get through this too. That being said, it’s okay to ask for a little bit of help.”

Andrew looked out the window, chest still tight from his earlier panic, though now everything was starting to drain away into that flat, cottony feeling of numbness. Through the window, dark clouds scuttled across the slate sky, gray on gray on gray. It didn’t look like spring yet, and maybe it would never look like spring again. This is what it’ll be like forever.

A bird landed on the window sill, ruffling its feathers to ward off the breeze outside. Andrew let out a long sigh.

“I’m tired, Bee,” he said.

Betsy smiled sadly. “I know,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor andrew :c
> 
> one more chapter left ! ( and i swear things start looking up for our boy, there just needs to be little rain before the sun can shine again)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh the last chapter!!!! you guys have no idea how excited i am to be posting this, but it's finally here!!!! it took me a year to write this fic, and what was supposed to a simple one shot for andreil week last year became what is now one of my most personal fics i've written. thank you to everyone who supported me and this project, and thank you so much for all the comments and kudos. it really means so much ;-;
> 
> i hope you enjoy this conclusion!!
> 
> tw: depiction of depression, disordered sleeping, and disordered eating

The day was sloughing away into nothing and the setting sun coated Andrew’s room in a thick blanket of orange. The rich golden tones painted the paper cranes lined up on Andrew’s desk in a sickly yellow, throwing long shadows across the wall where the light couldn’t reach. Andrew eyed them. There were eight paper cranes in total, all different sizes, their paper wings twitching from the AC vent above them.

Andrew closed his eyes and imagined them flying away, catching the wind and floating to Florida, across the Atlantic. Maybe some of them would end up in some nowhere-place in Ohio. In California. Andrew had made them, but that didn’t mean he would get to keep them.

Andrew was pretty sure he hadn’t moved all day. Or maybe two. It was hard to keep track of the days when all he did was lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, listening to the tinny music Andrew had memorized from Neil’s cassette tapes filter through the speaker on his phone.

He tried not to think about the last time he saw Neil. Instead he tried to absorb the music like he did before he had fucked everything up with him. He hadn’t texted Neil when he got home like Neil asked him to, and he hadn’t responded to any of the texts Neil sent since then. He had Nicky’s number, Andrew was sure he would report back to Neil if Neil asked him to. But maybe not. Maybe Neil was done with him. Maybe he was letting Andrew go, too.

The last person Andrew has spoken to was Betsy, and that was over a week ago. He’d skipped his session with her yesterday, almost accidentally. He hadn’t realized that it was Wednesday until it was nearly over, his therapy session coming and going in one, slow blink of the eye.

Occasionally Nicky would wander in with various soups and grilled cheese sandwiches, and sometimes Andrew ate them. The food tasted like dirt in his mouth, and his stomach lurched every time he thought about it afterwards. He wanted to sleep it off, let as much time slip pass as he could, but he didn’t think he was capable of sleeping anymore than he already was. He swung viciously from sleeping for large swaths of time, to not sleeping for days.

Andrew wished he could forget every bad thing that has happened to him. Instead it was carved into the back of his skull. He wasn’t safe anywhere, not even in his own skin. He could never escape. So many people had hurt him and tainted him, and now Andrew was an avalanche, a roaring fire, a slow-moving poison that ruined everything it touched. 

There was a knock on the door. Andrew assumed it was Nicky coming to check on him or bring him food or take the uneaten offerings away. It might have been Aaron, Andrew had caught him lurking outside his door more than once. He ignored it, squeezing his eyes shut tight. They burned, from lack of sleep and something –something else. Andrew’s chest stuttered and for one, terrible moment, he thought that he might cry. He hasn’t felt this low since he was thirteen and his life was falling apart.

“Andrew?”

This was not Nicky or Aaron’s voice, but it was familiar nonetheless. Neil knocked again, softly, and Andrew exited out of the music app on his phone and stared at the door.

“Can I come in?” Neil called.

When Andrew tried to respond, nothing came out but a dry croak. His voice was a ragged, ruined thing. He cleared his throat and tried again. “It’s not locked,” he managed to say.

Neil materialized in the doorway. Just his head, and then all of him, all at once. He cradled something in his hand, but Andrew couldn’t see what it was. Neil didn’t linger in the doorway, instead he wheeled the chair from Andrew’s desk to his bedside and hunched down in it. Andrew felt exposed, even under so many blankets.

“Nicky let you in?” Andrew grunted.

“It was Aaron, actually,” Neil said. If Andrew could feel anything, he was sure it would be something close to surprise. “He had Nicky call me.”

Neil revealed what was in his hand. A paper crane, the edges crisp and newly creased. It wasn’t one that Andrew had made, so Neil must have made this one himself.

“I’ve been practicing,” he said, following Andrew’s line of gaze. Then he said, “You haven’t been answering any of my calls.”

“And yet you keep calling,” Andrew said. Neil didn’t recoil from Andrew’s callous tone, like Nicky would have. And he didn’t tense with anger like Aaron. He sat with his hands in his lap and met Andrew’s blank stare with a calm one of his own.

“I’ll stop if you want me to,” Neil said. This was said calmly as well, but Andrew detected an undercurrent of anxiety beneath his words. Andrew recognized it, because it was the same fear and vulnerability that was laced in his.

Instead of answering, Andrew asked, “Why are you here?”

Neil had already said that Aaron was the reason, but that didn’t explain why he had come. Neil’s hands fidgeted in his lap, stroking the smooth wings of the bird he held in his hands. “I needed to make sure that you were okay.”

Finally, finally, the dam broke. The tears that sprang to Andrew’s eyes were not unexpected, but they still burned when they slid down his cheeks. When the first tear fell, Andrew pulled the blanket over his head and shook with silent sobs. Years of keeping it bottled up shattered and the ugliness inside of Andrew flowed out of him like the leaf litter in the gutter after a long rain.

When Andrew was worn out and dry-eyed, he finally noticed the quiet sounds of origami. Paper ripping on a soft crease, being folded and smoothed over with fingers. Andrew listened to it until he thought he could breathe again, and then he poked his head out. 

Neil was halfway through making a paper crane, and a small army was amassing around him. When he finished the one he was working on, he carefully plucked it from the desk and sat it on top of Andrew, over the thick blanket. Then he grabbed another paper from a nearby stack he must have brought from his house and started on another. 

Andrew sat up, dislodging the paper cranes Neil made and sending them fluttering to the ground. Neil’s hands paused, hovering over the paper, but didn’t say anything. He reached over to the paperstack and grabbed a couple sheets to pass to Andrew.

They made paper cranes in silence, Neil using Andrew’s desk and Andrew using a book as a table. Occasionally Andrew would pass Neil a paper crane and Neil would give him more paper, or Neil would give him a crane and Andrew would place it on the pile forming on his bed. They folded and creased and stacked until Andrew felt more solid, less of the watery facsimile person that came with crying.

“Bee thinks I should start taking antidepressants,” Andrew said, voice raw. He kept his eyes on the paper crane in his hands, and spent more time than necessary making sure the wings were lined up. 

Neil was quiet for a moment. “I think that may be a good idea,” he said, and placed his most recent crane on the pile.

“I’m not broken.”

“No,” Neil agreed easily. “But sometimes asking for help isn’t terrible.”

“Now you sound like Bee,” Andrew said. He meant for the comment to make Neil recoil, or scoff, but Neil only looked sheepish.

“It’s one of Uncle Stuart’s catch phrases. He’s still trying to get me to see a shrink,” he admitted. “I guess he has a couple good points.”

“You guess,” Andrew said, tone falling flat. He was suddenly tired of this conversation and tired of making cranes. “I don’t want to think right now.”

“Okay,” Neil said softly. He’d also abandoned his cranes. “I’ll put something on.”

Andrew didn’t have a TV in his room and he didn’t feel like venturing downstairs, so they queued up Netflix on Andrew’s laptop and watched a baking competition show. It wasn’t The Great British Bakeoff, but it was more competitive and equally as sweet. Andrew let his mind wander, dozing in and out of consciousness beside Neil.

The time on Andrew’s alarm clock read a little after nine when he woke up. His room was dark except for the screen of the laptop and he could feel Neil’s steady breathing from where he pressed against his side on his small bed. The door creaked again and Andrew realized what had woken him. Nicky let himself in, flicking the light on. Andrew scowled at the sudden brightness, but he was secretly relieved that the dark was banished from the room.

“Hey Neil,” Nicky said quietly. “Is he awake?”

Andrew rolled over so Nicky could see the full force of his ire, but Nicky only smiled. In his hands, he held a plate with two sandwiches and a couple water bottles. “I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding the plate down for Andrew to inspect.

Andrew would have to extract himself from Neil in order to sit up and eat, but his stomach gave a mournful growl at the smell of turkey and cheese, so he did so grudgingly. He took the plate of sandwiches even more grudgingly. Neil thanked Nicky and Andrew picked at his sandwich. Neil only ate a couple bites before he passed his over for Andrew to pick at as well.

When the sandwiches were most finished and the plate had been moved out of the way, Andrew let Neil lay down on the bed facing him. They didn’t lay curled around each other like before, they weren’t even touching, but somehow Andrew felt even more vulnerable like this. Like he was letting Neil see every bit of him without trying to hide it. He knew how he must have looked; he hasn’t showered for almost a week and he’s done little more than curl up in bed and let the days pass him by since his last therapy session, but Neil didn’t shy away.

“Will you think about taking the meds?” Neil whispered after several minutes of silence.

“It’s hard.” Andrew didn’t elaborate more than that, because he didn’t know what else to say. It was hard. Living was hard. Getting better was hard. Sometimes Andrew just wanted to curl in a ball and let himself drift away. He didn’t want to have to be a person anymore.

Suddenly restless, he pushed himself up and scooted to the foot of the bed, away from the restrictive blankets that Andrew had been swaddled in for hours. After hardly moving for days, the fast motion battered a headache into his temples. He cringed and waited for the black spots in his vision to go away.

Neil joined him at the edge of the bed, movements slow and careful. Somehow, he understood what Andrew couldn’t say. “When you’re at rock bottom, it’s hard to get up because then if you fall, you have something to lose. It’s easier to stay there, but that doesn’t mean it’s better,” he said.

Andrew huffed. “Another of your uncle’s platitudes?”

“Personal experience.”

Andrew clenched his jaw, his fists. He stayed tense for ten, twenty, thirty seconds. Then he released all of it and slumped forward, not quite a puppet with its strings cut, but more a wire coil that’s finally been released. “You will leave if nothing works and I stay like this forever?” he said, his voice involuntarily ticking up at the end to make it a question.

“I wouldn’t leave unless you told me to. If you wanted me to go,” Neil said. The line between his brow was more pronounced now, worried that Andrew was going to ask him to go.

“I want you to stay,” Andrew said, and the line softened. It was scary, admitting these things, but no scarier than telling Neil about his past, or kissing him, or allowing him to see him like this, cracked and too worn-out to keep himself together. He felt the need to say, “This will happen again.”

“I know,” Neil murmured softly and Andrew didn’t think his heart could ache any more than it did now. He felt the workings of a frown on his face so he rested his head on Neil’s shoulder to hide it. Neil worked gentle fingers through Andrew’s hair with the softest touch, never yanking or pulling too hard at the knots. Until now Andrew hadn’t believed that anyone could be so careful with him. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Neil said, voice quiet, breath ghosting the top of Andrew’s ear.

“I love you,” Andrew said. He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but he wasn’t going to take it back once it was out. He loved Neil. He _loved_ him.

Neil went still long enough for Andrew to notice. Then he brushed a kiss against Andrew’s temple and replied, “I love you too.”

“I’ll talk to Bee about taking medication if you talk to her too,” Andrew said. He could feel Neil about to protest so he interrupted before he could get a word out. “Do not tell me you don’t need it. It doesn’t have to be her. But this therapy shit helps.”

Neil was quiet for a moment. “Fine,” he said eventually. “I’ll go to one session.”

They linked pinkies and shook on it.

“You can hang them up,” Neil said, and nodded toward the cranes. “I can help you with that.”

“Sure,” Andrew responded. Frankly, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the cranes, but he had time to figure it out.

A small smile crossed Neil’s face. Andrew huffed but his chest felt a bit lighter. He pressed his face to the side of Neil’s neck and intertwined their hands. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to be completely okay, but getting better didn’t feel so impossible anymore. _Healing isn’t linear._ That’s what Bee had told him. One foot in front of the other.

Andrew squeezed Neil’s hand. He was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow
> 
> and that's it, isnt it? i've really been thinking a lot these past couple weeks about how many other people relate to andrew and his experiences in this fic. so many have commented and messaged how much it means to them to see themselves and y'all,,, you have no idea how much those messages mean to me. knowing that people can recognized themselves in my writing, in andrew, means the whole fucking world to me. thank you so much for sharing that.
> 
> when i was struggling with depression, i felt like the loneliness person in the world. sometimes i still feel that! the thing about mental illness is is that your brain lies to you. it tells you are worthless or unlovable or that you are alone or that no one is going to stay. but it's not true. it's hard to see when you're going through it but So Many people love and care about you. i love and care about you! and while it gets better (and trust me, it does), there are still going to be ups and downs and there are going to be days where you feel like you're the lowest you've ever been in your entire life, but you'll get through it. you're not alone. i promise <3

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed and thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Art by ghostangel (@[heartsofsunlight](https://heartsofsunlight.tumblr.com/post/628676447165464576/my-pieces-for-the-aftgbigbang-made-for) on tumblr)! Thank you so much!!! I love it so much and I really love how much it adds to the story :")
> 
> tumbr: knox-knocks  
> twitter: knox_knocks


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